Obama: U.S. nat’l security strategy to be based on education, clean energy, rights for terrorists | Washington Examiner

Obama: U.S. nat’l security strategy to be based on education, clean energy, rights for terrorists | Washington Examiner

As economic worries worsen, White House puts on the glitz | Washington Examiner

As economic worries worsen, White House puts on the glitz | Washington Examiner

Directly Quoted From The Communist Manifesto

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Glenn Beck Show - May 21, 2010

Founders' Friday - Revisionist History
Tonight, what we aren't being told and what your kids are not learning in school about
American History. Over the last eighty years, the progressives have been slowly but
surely rewriting the history of our country in order to transform us into a more secular nation. Tonight, we begin to reclaim our true history and set the record straight.

Glenn Beck Show - May 20, 2010

SEIU's Outrageous Intimidation Tactics
Glenn Beck Show- May 20, 2010
The outrageous story of an SEIU protest that crossed the line in a big way. Plus, the
story of a REALLY good local bank. More info on CRIME, INC. that you won't believe. Where is the media on all of this?

Megyn Kelly: Feds Don't Need Reasonable Suspicion To Ask For Your 'papers'

Posted by therightscoop in Politics on May 21st, 2010
Megyn Kelly did her homework for this segment by comparing the new Arizona law to the Federal law. Guess which one is tougher:

It’s a shame that the only sanity surrounding this law is on the Right, and on Fox News.

Train Vs. Tornado

Dodd Bill Gives a Pass to Fannie and Freddie - HUMAN EVENTS

Dodd Bill Gives a Pass to Fannie and Freddie - HUMAN EVENTS

The Elephant in the Room: Fannie, Freddie get a pass

Democrats want to expand the nanny state, not fix what broke the economy.

By Rick Santorum

Over the past year, Americans watched President Obama and congressional Democrats use caustic anti-business rhetoric to rally support for nationalizing major parts of the auto industry, increasing government involvement in health care, limiting executive compensation, and abolishing much of the private sector's role in student loans.

Next up, Democrats have set their sights on the financial-services sector. One would think that reforming the government-created entities at the epicenter of the 2008 crash, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would be first on their agenda. One would be wrong.

Why? Because these quasi-governmental entities were created and are controlled by Democrats in Washington. If Fannie and Freddie were a creation of the marketplace, Democrats would have made them public enemies Nos. 1 and 2 long ago.

Congress created Fannie and Freddie in 1938 to provide the affordable housing that Democrats thought the market was incapable of providing. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration pushed the mortgage giants to take on more subprime debt - and therefore risk - to accomplish Democrats' affordable-housing goals.

As Fannie and Freddie grew in size and risk profile, I and some of my Republican colleagues attempted to restrict their growth and reform them. Democrats opposed us, and they prevailed until it was too late. In 2008, Fannie, Freddie, and the real estate bubble burst.

Even though Fannie and Freddie are now in conservatorship, they have become even more important players in the home mortgage business. They have gone from facilitating affordable housing to servicing the bulk of the housing market. As much as 75 percent of new mortgages today are owned or guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie.

While Congress wants you to focus on Wall Street bailouts, the most expensive bailouts have been for Freddie and Fannie - at a cost to the taxpayers of about $146 billion and growing.

Are Democrats concerned? No. In a partisan vote last week, Senate Democrats defeated a Republican amendment to reform Fannie and Freddie. But they did adopt their version of rigorous government reform: a study.

So what is in the 1,565-page financial-reform bill that's up for a vote this week in the Senate?

At the start of this needed reform effort, Democrats criticized a so-called alphabet soup of multiple financial regulators. Does this bill consolidate and rationalize those regulators? Nope. It expands most existing regulators and creates new ones.

My favorite among the bill's assaults on free enterprise - and, more important, individual liberty - is the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This latest concept to come from the Obama administration's ivory-tower types is not your run-of-the-mill bureaucracy. The theory behind it is behavioral regulation. The academic-turned-bureaucrat who came up with the bureau is Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr, who has penned such articles as "Behaviorally Informed Financial Services Regulation."

Wonder what might be in store? Think czar for checking accounts and credit cards. According to Barr, "... regulatory choice ought to be analyzed according to the market's stance toward human fallibility." That's right: He thinks our market-based economy is composed of businesses designed to bilk people by exploiting their flaws. I assume his research shows that government bureaucrats don't share that human fallibility.

How would the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau come to know you and what financial products are best for you? It would be given the power to collect information on businesses and individuals. It would even be able to require you to answer questions under oath about your personal finances.

Barr and his nanny-state administration colleagues are working to require that some banks "geo-code" deposits to allow tracking of their origins and provide other information about their accounts. Think Google Earth for all our personal financial transactions. I hope the data are more secure than the Department of Veterans Affairs'.

While the president has deceptively characterized this debate as being about Wall Street vs. Main Street, congressional Democrats have refused to police their side of the street - Fannie and Freddie. Instead, they continue to defy public opinion and push a bill that will further expand government, invade our privacy, and assume even more control over our lives.

Rick Santorum can be reached at rsantorum@phillynews.com.

Wolf Blitzer Questions Mexican President Felipe Calderon

by Maynard on May 20, 2010 · 13 comments

A post by Maynard

Here’s an excerpt from the transcript. I could editorialize, but it pretty much speaks for itself.

BLITZER: All right. Let’s talk a little bit about Mexico’s laws. I read an article in “The Washington Times” the other day. I’m going to read a paragraph to you and you tell me if this is true or not true. This is from “The Washington Times”: “Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to reenter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals.”

Is that true?

CALDERON: It was true, but it is not anymore. We derogate or we erased that part of the law. Actually, the legal immigration is not a — is not a crime in Mexico. Not anymore, since one year ago. And that is the reason why we are trying to establish our own comprehensive public policy talking about, for instance, immigrants coming from Central America…

BLITZER: So if…

CALDERON: — (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: So if people want to come from Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador or Nicaragua, they want to just come into Mexico, they can just walk in?

CALDERON: No. They need to fulfill a form. They need to establish their right name. We analyze if they have not a criminal precedent. And they coming into Mexico. Actually…

BLITZER: Do Mexican police go around asking for papers of people they suspect are illegal immigrants?

CALDERON: Of course. Of course, in the border, we are asking the people, who are you?

And if they explain…

BLITZER: At the border, I understand, when they come in.

CALDERON: Yes.

BLITZER: But once they’re in…

CALDERON: But not — but not in — if — once they are inside the — inside the country, what the Mexican police do is, of course, enforce the law. But by any means, immigration is a crime anymore in Mexico.

BLITZER: Immigration is not a crime, you’re saying?

CALDERON: It’s not a crime.

BLITZER: So in other words, if somebody sneaks in from Nicaragua or some other country in Central America, through the southern border of Mexico, they wind up in Mexico, they can go get a job…

CALDERON: No, no.

BLITZER: They can work.

CALDERON: If — if somebody do that without permission, we send back — we send back them.

BLITZER: You find them and you send them back?

CALDERON: Yes. However, especially with the people of Guatemala, we are providing a new system in which any single citizen from Guatemala could be able to visit any single border (INAUDIBLE) in the south. And even with all the requirements, he can or she can visit any parts of Mexico.

---

Here's The Video

The Most Depressing Graduation Speech Ever!

Official recovery.gov Funding Paid Out

Just an update, the Government has still only paid out 50% of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds .

The Presidents and the Arizona Law

By William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn
May 20, 2010 10:30 A.M.

Neither President Obama nor the president of Mexico has a legitimate objection to Arizona’s attempt to control illegal immigration.

We’ve pretty much had it with the attacks on Arizona and the self-debasement of our country by the president. We are the United States and Arizona is our soil, part of our country. Lately, however, there’s been too much denigration of Arizona from the White House, and too much tearing down of Arizona for a law that is — if anything — more liberal than the federal law.

Yesterday, we saw it again when Mexican president Felipe Calderón and the president spoke jointly, and jointly critically, at the White House. The New York Times headline sums it up: “Obama & Calderón Decry Ariz. Immigration Law.”

Here’s the president yesterday, with Calderón at his side:

We also discussed the new law in Arizona, which is a misdirected effort — a misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system, and which has raised concerns in both our countries. . . . And I want everyone, American and Mexican, to know my administration is taking a very close look at the Arizona law. We’re examining any implications, especially for civil rights. Because in the United States of America, no law-abiding person — be they an American citizen, a legal immigrant, or a visitor or tourist from Mexico — should ever be subject to suspicion simply because of what they look like.

For his part, Calderón then said this, standing next to the president:

In Mexico, we are and will continue being respectful of the internal policies of the United States and its legitimate right to establish in accordance to its Constitution whatever laws it approves. But we will retain our firm rejection to criminalize migration so that people that work and provide things to this nation will be treated as criminals. And we oppose firmly the S.B. 1070 Arizona law given its principles that are partial and discriminatory.

There is a lot to say about this — and we shall say it now. Allowing the running down of a part of the United States by the head of a foreign government, at the White House, standing next to the president — who not only didn’t challenge him, but encouraged him — is a foreign- and domestic-policy catastrophe. And in any catastrophe, one has to ask what were the conditions or causes that led to such a thing. Did the president tell Mr. Calderón ahead of time it would be okay to blast away at Arizona, which is to blast away at the United States? Or, less likely, was nothing said ahead of time and Mr. Calderón simply took note of the administration’s statements about Arizona thus far? Or, had Mr. Calderón simply observed over the past year not only President Obama and his administration’s take-down of Arizona but President Obama’s other attitudes about America, such as his bowing to foreign leaders and his calling America “arrogant,” “dismissive,” and “derisive” of our allies?

It took us twelve years of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush to overcome the low opinion of and in America that Jimmy Carter wrought in four years. As Jeanne Kirkpatrick said when Reagan came into office, the time of American being kicked around is over. Well, it’s back. So let’s take a scalpel to all of this, starting with Mexico.

Felipe Calderón has simply no business lecturing us, lecturing America, about our immigration policies. How does Mexico treat illegal immigrants? See Article 67 of Mexico’s General Population Law: “Authorities, whether federal, state or municipal . . . are required to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country, before attending to any issues.” Now, the Arizona law, which we’ll get to in a moment, doesn’t even say this; there is no such language as “demand,” in Arizona.

But, first, here’s an Amnesty International press release from last month: “The Mexican authorities must act to halt the continuing abuse of migrants who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part in kidnappings, rapes and murders.” Public officials — the government of Mexico — turns a blind eye. The AI report continues: “Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses. . . . Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world.”

So, illegal immigrants in Mexico face some of the most dangerous abuses in the world and they face reprisal and deportation if they complain. Further, there is “persistent failure” by the government of Mexico in stopping this. Felipe Calderón should be schooled on this, and until he is schooled on this, he should simply shut up about Arizona, about the United States — one of the safest places in the world for illegal immigrants and one of the most welcoming places in the world for legal immigrants.

Now, on to Arizona’s law. It cannot and will not operate the way President Obama has said; one will not be stopped because he may be calmly eating ice cream while looking different than the rest of America. Here’s what the law says:

FOR ANY LAWFUL STOP, DETENTION OR ARREST MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON.

What this means is that one simply cannot be stopped or inquired of, regarding their immigration status, based on any kind of suspicion whatsoever, not without a condition precedent, not without being stopped for an illegal act antecedent. For example, one will not be inquired of unless first stopped for violating some other law, like speeding or running a red light. Status and looks are not in play. And then, if inquired about, all inquiry stops if proof such as a driver’s license or green card is shown.

Second, the law continues:

A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY NOT CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN IN IMPLEMENTING THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SUBSECTION.

It is written into the law: race, color, and national origin cannot be the basis for reasonable suspicion to inquire of someone’s status. It is against the law.

Now, let’s look at the federal law that has been on the books for over 50 years: Not only is it a federal offense to be in this country illegally, but the federal law states, “Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him.”

And the federal law adopts no standard for such enforcement, not even the standard of reasonable suspicion. And it requires no lawful stop precedent to such inquiry. Furthermore, Department of Justice guidelines state: “State police officers have ‘inherent power’ to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law.”

So just what exactly has Arizona done to bring down the wrath of city councils, the president, the attorney general, the secretary of Homeland Security, and the president of Mexico? What exactly has Arizona done that could serve as the basis for an assistant secretary of state to tell the Chinese that we, too, have our human-rights problems, citing Arizona’s new law? The answer is nothing.

Now, a new argument came up yesterday from the president. He said: “I think a fair reading of the language of the statute indicates that it gives the possibility of individuals who are deemed suspicious of being illegal immigrants from being harassed or arrested.”

We first ask if he’s read the law, because the AG and the Secretary of HLS have said they have not read it. But what of the “possibility of being harassed or arrested” unfairly? Sure, it’s there, but the state law is more protective on this score than the federal law. And, moreover: All laws are potentially discriminatory or have the potential to be abused. As Andy McCarthy put it, not just laws, but policing:

All policing is potentially discriminatory. Police make arrests without judicial arrest-warrants all the time if they believe they have witnessed a violation of law. They conduct searches all the time without judicial search-warrants if, in their judgment, the facts they observe amount to one of the recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement. And, as we’ve pointed out repeated, they do not have to have any reason at all to ask questions — including to ask a person for identification or immigration status.

It makes no sense, except as an exercise in pandering, to criticize a law because it can potentially be abused. Should we, for example, shut down the legislative process because Congress could potentially abuse its power by, say, hiding the occasional hundred billion or two in spending?

Final point, why did Arizona pass this law? Last year, as Abby Wisse Schachter put it, “the Border Patrol apprehended 241,453 people and confiscated a record 1.3 million pounds of marijuana — in the Tucson, Ariz., sector alone. Nearly a fifth of all those apprehended already had a U.S. criminal record.”

There are nearly half a million illegal immigrants in Arizona. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, while illegal immigrants make up 9 percent of the Arizona population, they are responsible for 22 percent of the felonies in Arizona and they constitute 11 percent of the state prison population. Arizona is now the kidnapping capital of the United States, and Phoenix has the second-largest kidnapping problem in the world (second to Mexico City).

According to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, kidnapping in Arizona increased 402 percent between 2004 and 2008, with almost 70 percent of the kidnapping cases submitted for prosecution involving illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants account for 16.5 percent of those sentenced for violent crimes; 18.5 percent of those sentenced for property crimes; 33.5 percent of those sentenced for the manufacture, sale, or transport of drugs; and 44.4 percent of those sentenced or forgery and fraud in the Phoenix area. And, according to DOJ statistics, three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz. — mostly by agents of alien-smuggling organizations. And one in five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border. For example, most of the cocaine and meth consumed in America comes in from Mexico, and in some states, over 90 percent of the marijuana consumed is from Mexico.

Was there a compelling interest for this law? Yes. Was there a rational basis for this law? Yes. Is there any rationality in beating up on Arizona, or in the president’s allowing — even welcoming — leaders of foreign countries to do so? None, and it is a moral shame that he persists in this ugly business.

— William J. Bennett is the author of the recently published A Century Turns. He and Seth Leibsohn are fellows of the Claremont Institute.

Glenn Beck Show - May 19, 2010

Congressman Anthony Weiner held a press conference in which he accused Goldline, one of Glenn's sponsors, of "ripping off customers". Tonight, Glenn sets the record straight and announces the launch of a new website, Weinerfacts.com. Plus, did you know if you make $30,000 a year, you're a greedy, evil rich American? More of the Great American Apology Tour. All of that- plus, NBC's completely unbiased coverage of the immigration debate (in his best sarcastic voice).

People In The Administration Who Haven't Read The Arizona Illegal Immigration Bill

Eric Holder - Attorney General of the United States


Janet Napolitano - Secretary of Homeland Security


PJ Crowley - Assistant Secretary of State

Glenn Beck Show - May 18, 2010

The Truth About Social Justice Part 2
Tonight, Why Is Obama merging the EPA with churches? Social Justice Exposed. Your church is either for socialist government or the living of the Gospel and you need to know which one they are teaching.

LA's boycott resolution sparks a threat over power the city receives from Arizona

By JONATHAN LLOYD

Updated 9:02 AM PDT, Wed, May 19, 2010

An Arizona utility commissioner said he's willing to pull the plug on Los Angeles if the city goes through with a boycott of his state.

In a letter to the city of LA, a member of Arizona's power commission said he would ask Arizona utility companies to cut off the power supply to Los Angeles. LA gets about 25 percent of its power from Arizona.

"That is one commissioner who has that idea -- whether he can do that or not is another idea," said LA Councilman Dennis Zine. "They are the ones who have to make the move, not us."

The commissioner's power grid play is in response to the city's approval of a resolution directing city staff to consider which contracts with Arizona can be terminated.

Here's part Arizona Corporation Commission member Gary Pierce's letter to the mayor:

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.

I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.

The full text was sent to the blog Hot Air.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is in Washington D.C., meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, but his deputy chief of staff issued the following statement: "The mayor stands strongly behind the city council and he will not respond to threats from the state that has isolated itself from an America that values freedom, liberty and basic civil rights."

Councilmember Tom LaBonge said he'd like to talk with Pierce. LaBonge said the city needs to look into its long standing utility agreements with Arizona.

Other California cities, including Oakland and San Francisco, have passed similar measures.

On Tuesday, Berkeley became the latest California city to boycott Arizona. The City Council voted unanimously to restrict staff from traveling to the state on city business.

SB 1070 -- here's the text of the law -- empowers local law enforcement to check the immigration status of suspects they have stopped for other reasons if there is a reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally. The law specifically bars police from racial profiling.

The Arizona Republic newspaper recently asked a panel of experts to outline how the law would work in real-world situations. The experts' interpretations varied when it came to what happens at the point a law encforcement officer can or should ask about a person's status.

First Published: May 19, 2010 7:32 AM PD

Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate

By TODD ACKERMAN
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

May 17, 2010, 11:02PM

Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.

Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren't taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.

“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn't fix Medicare soon, there'll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress' promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”

More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.

The largest number of doctors opting out comes from primary care, a field already short of practitioners nationally and especially in Texas. Psychiatrists also make up a large share of the pie, causing one Texas leader to say, “God forbid that a senior has dementia.”

The opt-outs follow years of declining Medicare reimbursement that culminated in a looming 21 percent cut in 2010. Congress has voted three times to postpone the cut, which was originally to take effect Jan. 1. It is now set to take effect June 1.

Not cost-effective

The uncertainty proved too much for Dr. Guy Culpepper, a Dallas-area family practice doctor who says he wrestled with his decision for years before opting out in March. It was, he said, the only way “he could stop getting bullied and take control of his practice.”

“You do Medicare for God and country because you lose money on it,” said Culpepper, a graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. “The only way to provide cost-effective care is outside the Medicare system, a system without constant paperwork and headaches and inadequate reimbursement.”

Ending Medicare participation is just one consequence of the system's funding problems. In a new Texas Medical Association survey, opting out was one of the least common options doctors have taken or are planning as a result of declining Medicare funding — behind increasing fees, reducing staff wages and benefits, reducing charity care and not accepting new Medicare patients.

In 2008, 42 percent of Texas doctors participating in the survey said they were no longer accepting all new Medicare patients. Among primary-care doctors, the percentage was 62 percent.

The impact on doctors has not been lost on their patients. Kathy Sweeney, a Houston retiree, twice has been turned away by specialists because they weren't accepting new Medicare patients. She worries her doctors might have to drop her if Medicare cuts go through and they can't afford to continue in the program.

“I've talked to them about the possibility,” said Sweeney, who sent her legislators a letter calling on them to fix Medicare. “They're hanging in there as long as there's not a severe cut, but just thinking I couldn't continue doctor-patient relationships I built up over years is disturbing. Seniors should be able to see the doctors they want.”

The problem dates back to 1997, when Congress passed a balanced budget law that included a Medicare payment formula aimed at reining in spending. The formula, which assumed low growth rates, called for payment cuts if spending exceeded goals, a scenario that occurred year after year as health care costs grew. The scheduled cuts, expected to be modest, turned out to be large.

Congress would overturn the cuts, but their short-term fixes didn't keep up with inflation. The Texas Medical Association says the cumulative effect since 2001 already amounts to an inflation-adjusted cut of 20.9 percent. In 2001, doctors receiving a $1,000 Medicare payment made roughly $410, after taking out operating expenses. In 2010, they'll net $290. If the scheduled 21.2 percent cut goes through, they'd net $72, effectively an 83 percent cut since 2001.

The issue caused the Texas Medical Association to break ranks with the American Medical Association and oppose health care reform efforts throughout 2009. Then TMA President Dr. William Fleming said “reform is doomed to failure” without Medicare reform and called Congress' failure to devise a rational payment plan “an insult to seniors, people with disabilities and military families.”

No surprise to senator

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he isn't surprised by the new opt-out numbers, allowing that Congress' inability to reform Medicare is leaving “seniors without access and breaking the promise we made to them.”

“The problem has been how to eliminate the cuts without running up the deficit,” said Cornyn, responding to blame U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, placed on the Senate for not passing a House bill that would have provided a longer-term Medicare fix. “There hasn't been the political will, but we really have no choice but to fix it.”

Cornyn acknowledged the task is daunting. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that eliminating scheduled Medicare payment cuts through 2020 would cost $276 billion.

The growth in Texas Medicare opt-outs began in earnest in 2007, when 70 doctors notified Trailblazer Health Enterprises, the state's Medicare carrier, they would no longer participate, up from seven in 2006. The numbers jumped to 151 in 2008, fell back to 135 in 2009 and are on pace for 200 in 2010. From 1998 to 2002, by contrast, no more than three a year opted out.

Now, according to a Texas Medical Association new poll, more than four in 10 doctors are considering the move.

“I've been in practice 24 years, and a lot of my patients got old right along with me,” Culpepper said. “It's stressful to tell them you're leaving Medicare and they're responsible for payments if they want to stay with you. You feel like you're abandoning them.”

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Insurers and Doctors Consolidate Their Businesses in Wake of ObamaCare's Passage

President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It's clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama's plan.

Scott Gottlieb, MD. “No, You Can’t Keep Your Health Plan, “ Wall Street Journal, May 18. 2010

Lost in the rhetoric after Obamacare's passage are some of its consequences. One of these is the rapid increase in premiums for individuals, somewhere in the 10% to 30% range in 2010 alone; and the other is loss of access of patients to individual physicians in the neighborhood and region.

Because of expenses entailed in marketing to the individual market and Obamacare’s 20% cap on health plan money spent on marketing and administration, health plans are offering fewer policies for individuals and ratcheting up premiums, making care not only less affordable but less accessible as well.

To manage their expenses, health plans are also reducing fees to hospitals and doctors, particularly in such high-tech fields of radiology, cardiology, and orthopedics. These cuts are expected to average about 10% these year, and up to 40% in Medicare fees for high tech specialists.

As a result, “eruptive consolidation” is already well underway. Physicians and hospitals are engaging in CYA “Cover Your Ass” defensive business arrangements. Doctors , primary care practitioners as well as specialists, are lining up to sell their practices to hospitals. Insecure physicians have read the handwriting on the wall – mandates to buy and install electronic health records, rising malpractice rates, falling Medicare reimbursements, increasing business and regulatory expenses, an unfriendly political environment – and bailing out. The number of doctors in private practice has dropped from 67% to less than 50% in the last two years.

Hospitals can read the handwriting too. They read projections that Obamacare will cause 15% of hospitals to fail because of the onslaught of 34 million more insured, most of whom are being paid for at Medicare and Medicaid rates that do not meet practice expenses.

Hospitals know that forced digitization will be too much too soon, with little or no return on investment. It is an expense they can ill afford. Hospitals know their bottom lines rely overwhelming on high ticket, high tech specialty care. So hospitals are only too happy to buy out specialty practices and the primary care doctors who feed the specialists.

Despite all the high flown rhetoric about “disruptive innovation” and “disruptive decentralization,” with greater access and greater affordability, the reform pendulum may be swinging the other way, towards eruptive consolidation between hospitals and doctors, more limited access to doctors, and higher expenses in centralized institutions, where costs are often twice as high as on the outside in ambulatory, decentralized settings.

Health reform threatens to cram already overwhelmed emergency rooms - TheHill.com

Health reform threatens to cram already overwhelmed emergency rooms - TheHill.com

Public option is alive and well, but hidden | Washington Examiner

Public option is alive and well, but hidden | Washington Examiner

For Those Who Are Interested, Here Is Elana Kagan's Thesis

TO THE FINAL CONFLICT: SOCIALISM IN NEW YORK CITY, 1900-1933
By ELENA KAGAN April 15, 1981
A senior thesis submitted to the History Department of Princeton University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts

American Thinker: What Exactly is 'Social Justice?'

American Thinker: What Exactly is 'Social Justice?'

Glenn Beck Liberty University Commencement Speech

Some Videos of David Horowitz' Encounter with a Muslim Students Association member

First the video that started it all from The Right Scoop:


This is exactly what the Walid Shoebats of the world are telling us that we are fighting against. She didn’t hesitate at the end to answer his question honestly and she completely exposed her hatred of the Jewish people. And the interesting thing is that it’s not just the Jews that they hate but also Christians, especially in the West. We are targets as well, and as we showed before, there are Muslim organizations setting up waiting for the call to Jihad in America.

I’m reading one of Walid Shoebat’s books and he says that most devout Muslims believe in the coming of the Mahdi, their messiah. They believe that when their Mahdi returns, that’s when Jihad begins. Shoebat says that there are many Muslims who come out now and oppose Osama Bin Laden for fighting Jihad. He says don’t be deceived – they are not peaceful Muslims; their beef with Osama Bin Laden is timing, that’s it. They believe he should wait until the coming of the Mahdi to wage Jihad. Wow.

Next, Shawn Hannity had David Horowitz on his radio show to explain a little more. Horowitz explains the connection between the MSA (Muslim Student Association) and the Muslim Brotherhood. He also goes into some detail on how he knew to get the Muslim girl in the video to admit her hatred for Jews:


And lastly, Shawn had David Horowitz on his t.v. show.

Octopus Kills Shark

Pretty Cool!

Attorney General Eric Holder Refuses to Say “Radical Islam” When Pressed at Hearing on Faisal Shahzad (Video)

Governor Chris Christie calls columnist 'thin-skinned' for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone'

I wish all politicians spoke this way!

Holder Admits to Not Having Read Arizona Immigration Bill

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, May 13, 2010
Here was another gem from today’s Holder hearing…
Obama’s Attorney General admitted during his hearing with the House Judiciary Committee that he has not read the 10 page Arizona immigration bill even though he has repeatedly spoken out against it in recent public outings.
Sean Hannity played the video:


FOX News reported:

Despite repeatedly voicing concerns about Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law in recent weeks and threatening to challenge it, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he has not yet read the law — which is only 10 pages long.

“I have not had a chance to — I’ve glanced at it,” Holder said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing when asked had he read the state law cracking down on illegal immigrants.

Holder told reporters last month that he fears the new law is subject to abuse and that the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department are in the midst of conducting a review.

The Arizona law requires local and state law enforcement to question people about their immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally, and makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally.

Obamacare Will Cut Columbus-based White Castle's Net Income In Half

From Third Base Politics


And that's not an exaggeration.
Now imagine what that will do to jobs? Scary, eh?

This analysis comes straight from Jamie Richardson, an executive with White Castle:

Background
We have an exceptional benefits program, including exceptional health care. Depending on specific plan, we cover anywhere from 70% to 89% of premium costs. We’ve also, as you know, been in the neighborhoods where we do business for decades now. When business situations have got tough, we haven’t abandoned ship, but continue to offer good paying jobs and exceptional benefits creating a platform for prosperity.

Approach
We wanted to start to estimate what our potential liability will be after 2014 with regard to the 9.5% of Household Income provision, assuming all things being equal to where we are today. To do this, we pulled Household Income data for all 421 of our Castle trading areas, and used this to approximate the Household Income of team member households. (Most often our employees are reflective of the neighborhoods where we do business.) We then applied weight averages to the different plans to determine approximately how many team members would have their premium amount exceed 9.5% of household income.

Findings
In present form, this provision alone would lead to approximate increased costs equal to over 55% of what we earn annually in net income. (Based on past 4 year average.) Effectively cutting our net income in half would have devastating impact on the business – cutting future expansion and more job creation at least in half. Sadly, it makes it difficult to justify growing where jobs are needed most – in lower income areas.

This is simply unacceptable.

And it's what President Obama, Ted Strickland, Mary Jo Kilroy, Steve Driehaus, Charlie Wilson, Betty Sutton, John Boccieri and so many other Ohio Democrats wanted.

I hope no one tells Harold and Kumar.

Kerry's Powerless America Act

From Investor's Business Daily

Regulations: Call it cap-and-trade or bait-and-switch, but John Kerry and Joe Lieberman continue to tilt at windmills with a bill to restrain energy growth in the name of saving the planet.

The bill introduced Wednesday and sponsored by the two senators is called the American Power Act, an Orwellian phrase if ever there was one. Like President Obama's offshore drilling program, for every "incentive" there is a restriction. It's as if Hamlet were to be appointed Secretary of Energy.

The legislation has little to do with developing America's vast domestic energy supply. It's cap-and-trade meets pork-barrel spending. It's about regulations, restrictions and research. It does not deal with exploiting America's vast energy reserves but with finding ways to mitigate their alleged harmful effect.

To that end, the bill creates some 60 new agencies and projects to eat up our tax dollars and buy support (see list alongside).

According to a leaked draft summary, there is "$7 billion annually to improve our transportation infrastructure and efficiency" to be paid for by a gas tax that is not called a tax but a "linked fee." There is "$2 billion per year for researching and developing effective carbon capture and sequestration methods and devices." There is even "a new multibillion-dollar revenue stream for agriculture through a domestic offset program." Tilling the soil releases carbon dioxide, don't you know?

Ironically, the draft summary acknowledges the bill will cause energy prices to necessarily skyrocket by promising to "provide assistance to those Americans who may be disproportionately affected by potential increases in energy prices." How about lowering prices and creating jobs by increasing domestic supply?

Somewhere Sen. Lindsey Graham fell off the wagon, disillusioned perhaps by the politics of shifting priorities, and possibly not impressed, as we are not, by the bill's promise to expedite licensing for nuclear reactors "in a way that is guided by sound science and engineering while remaining fully mindful of safety and environmental concerns." That's liberal-speak for study forever, build never.

After coal-mine disasters and oil rig explosions, one would think nuclear power would be celebrated as a non-polluting power source whose casualty rate is zero. According to the Energy Information Administration, electricity from nukes eliminated 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2009. Split atoms, baby, split atoms. Enough already with the research.

The proposed legislation mandates reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels via a cap-and-trade system for power plants and, eventually, factories — with strict curbs on the types of trading that could be done. It would require oil companies, for example, to obtain emission permits at a set price not determined by the trading market.

While allegedly providing some incentives to domestic energy development, it would also allow California to implement its draconian energy efficiency standards and other provisions of its signature global warming law, AB 32. "We will not undermine California," Kerry said. Oh, good.

"This bill is a compilation of just about every bad idea that has emerged in the energy debate," said Patrick Creighton, spokesman for the Institute for Energy Research, a free-market think tank. "Two things are certain if this bill becomes law: Energy prices will skyrocket, and jobs will be shipped overseas."

It is a scam built upon a scam, introduced just as the mercury in Chicopee, Mass., dropped to 26 degrees at about 5 a.m., beating the previous record for the chilliest May 11 set back in 1962.

In testimony before Congress on May 6, Britain's Lord Christopher Monckton, a global warming expert, noted that "neither global mean surface temperature nor its rates of change in recent decades have been exceptional, unusual, inexplicable or unprecedented."

Monckton also advised: "There are many urgent priorities that need the attention of Congress, and it is not for me as an invited guest in your country to say what they are. Yet I can say this much: on any view, 'global warming' is not one of them."

We agree. Jobs, energy development and economic growth come first.

Obama File 102 America's Little Lenin? Joel Rogers and the Obama Movement.

From www.newzeal.blogspot.com

Obama File 102 America's Little Lenin? Joel Rogers and the Obama Movement.

Obama file 101 here

It is becoming increasingly clear that Barack Obama did not create a movement. A movement created Barack Obama.


One of the key leaders of that movement is a Madison, Wisconsin, law professor and sociologist - Joel Rogers.

While not widely known outside "progressive" circles, few people have exercised more influence in more strands of the movement that selected and elected Barack Obama, than has Joel Rogers.

Obama's former "Green Jobs" Czar, the Marxist-Leninist Van Jones has been part of Rogers' network for some years.

Rogers has served with Jones on the board of the Apollo Alliance , a radical led coalition of green groups and labor unions that had considerable input in writing Obama's massive "stimulus package". Rogers has served as Senior Policy Adviser to Jones' Oakland based Green For All - the Northern California affiliate of the Apollo Alliance.

In the video below Van Jones, takes time in his address to the January 2009 Mayors Innovation Project conference to praise his friend Rogers.

Jones points out three "great gifts" that Joel Rogers "has given our movement".



Firstly, there is "a new economic model ...high road development ...the best thinking that he represents is now reflected in the White House."

Secondly , "...the New Party, which is now the Working Families Party...the idea of a 'new politics' that you could actually have in this country bringing together labor, civil rights, feminists...and actually make a difference...is the basic framework for what just took over the White House."

Thirdly, ..."his idea of a new energy paradigm. His founding the Apollo Alliance. I believe the stimulus is going to put something like $80 billion in this direction..."

Jones credits Rogers with dreaming up the White House economic model - basically a 21st century "green" version of corporate socialism. Rogers also allegedly masterminded the electoral alliance that put Obama in the driver's seat. He then founded the organization that helped write the "stimulus bill", which is now funneling billions into a movement primarily designed to keep the Obama and the Democrats in power.

That's a lot of influence for one man. Does Van Jones exaggerate? Let's investigate.

The New Party which Rogers and Dan Cantor founded in the early 90s, was an attempt to to unite the poor, Blacks, Latinos , labor and "community groups" to work with and inside the Democratic Party to elect large numbers of leftist candidates to public office.

The party was essentially amalgam of four organizations -radical Washington DC "think tank" the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

The first strategic meetings to plan the New Party were held in Joel Rogers' home in Madison Wisconsin in the very early 1990s. Present were Rogers' wife Sarah Siskind, Dan Cantor (now leading the New party spin-off Working Families Party in New York) , ACORN leaders Wade Rathke , Zach Polett , Steve Kest and Jon Kest and IPS linked activists Steve Cobble , Harriet Barlow and Sam Pizzigati .

The very first meeting included Gerry Hudson from DSA and SEIU and early ACORN leader and IPS affiliate Gary Delgado. Anthony Thigpenn, from Los Angeles was also approached, but though supportive, did not wish to play a leadership role.

Incidentally, both Delgagdo and Thigpenn were later supporters of Van Jones' anti Iraq War magazine War Times.

The party was socialist in character, but only revealed its true nature to friends.

In March 28-30 1997 Democratic Socialists of America convened their annual Socialists Scholars Conference at Borough of Manhattan Community College, New York. Barack Obama, incidentally, attended some of these conferences in the early 1980s.

The 1997 conference was themed "Radical alternatives on the eve of the millenium".

Invitees were asked to join the debate on "changes in the labor movement, Marxist theory, the state of the economy, market socialism, and other areas where theory and practice meet...listen to the United States' only independent and socialist congressman, Rep. Bernie Sanders..."dialogue with Joel Rogers of the New Party... "

Barack Obama joined the New Party in Chicago, during his 1995 Illinois State Senate run. Obama was also a leader of the Chicago New Party sister organization , Progressive Chicago, as far back as 1993. Other Progressive Chicago leaders included Keith Kelleher of SEIU and ACORN, Kelleher's wife, Madeline Talbott (ACORN) and Ron Sable, Danny K . Davis and Lou Pardo of DSA.

The New Party relied on "fusion" voting for its success. Candidates ran on both the Democrat and New Party lines, combing the vote totals from both. This practice was illegal in many states, so in 1997, Rogers and his wife Sarah Siskind took a case to the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the state bans.


According to the The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 5, 1996;

With allusions to possible electoral chaos, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court expressed skepticism Wednesday over an effort to overturn 40 state laws that forbid nominations of the same candidate by more than one political party.

The high court heard arguments in a case from Minnesota that was orchestrated by a Wisconsin couple Joel Rogers, a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor, and his wife, Madison attorney Sarah E. Siskind.

Rogers is a co-founder and national chair of the New Party, which describes itself as progressive and claims 10,000 members nationwide. The party has elected candidates for local offices in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The case failed and '"fusion" voting was ruled unconstitutional. Deprived of its main tactic, the New Party, went into sharp decline, surviving under the Working Families Party banner in New York and a few other states.

Coincidentally, Sarah Siskind worked for the the Madison Wisconsin office of Barack Obama's Chicago law firm, Miner, Barnhill and Galland.

In 2002 Sarah Siskind represented ACORN in a successful class action against sub-prime mortgage lender Household Finance Corporation.

According to Miner, Barnhill and Galland.;

For the last ten years, the firm (principally Sarah Siskind) has also represented individual consumers and organizational plaintiffs in class action lawsuits challenging predatory lending practices. These include a series of deceptive practices actions brought in Illinois, California and Massachusetts against Household Finance Corporation, and recently consolidated in In re Household Lending Litigation, Case No. C-02-1240 and Related Cases, N.D. Ca.) and settled for $152 million in benefits and future practice change relief...

Siskind won a settlement against Household Finance Corporation which gave delinquent borrowers interest rate reductions, waivers of unpaid late charges, deferral of accrued unpaid interest and principal reductions.

It was a socialist "win-win" situation. Siskind and Miner, Barhill & Galland made money, ACORN was able to force another mortgage lender to make more soft loans to its "core constituency" and the 2008 sub-prime mortgage collapse was brought one step closer.

Some commentators have surmised that some socialists leftists, working through ACORN and similar groups may have deliberately promoted sub- prime lending as a way of creating economic chaos, thereby provoking a subsequent increase in government involvement in the economy.

They point to the now famous Cloward-Piven Strategy devised in th e 1960s by Richard Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven. The "Cloward-Piven" plan involved enrolling as many people as possible onto state welfare programs. The point was to overload and collapse the state systems, leading to a Federal takeover of welfare.

Interestingly, when Richard Cloward died in 2001, 500 people gathered at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City to celebrate his life and work. Speakers included Frances Fox Piven, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, (all New Party founders and DSA members) Gus Newport (DSA member) Howard Zinn (New Party founder) , Joel Rogers and Miles Rapoport.

Coincidentally Rapoport was the president of the New York based "think tank" Demos, an official partner organization of the Institute for Policy Studies and a close ally of ACORN.


Barack Obama helped establish Demos in 1999-2000 and became a Trustee of the organization. Van Jones also later served as a Demos Trustee, but is currently on leave.

In 1998 Chicago DSA activist and IPS affiliate James Weinstein presided over a major Chicago "Back to Basics" conference designed to re-align the U.S. left back to "class politics"

To explore how we (the Left) can increase our presence in the mainstream of American political and intellectual life.

Speakers included Dr. Quentin Young (DSA member , New Party founder , Barack Obama long time friend , mentor and physician) Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (a San Francisco based activist and comrade of Van Jones'), plus DSA comrades Christine Riddiough, Joseph Schwartz and Roberta Lynch.

Joel Rogers, founder of The New Party, listed people's concerns: education, campaign finance reform, environment, raising the minimum wage, and concern about global capitalism. Neither Democrats nor Republicans take this list seriously. Liberalism relied on favorable government regulation and mass politics to deal with problems. A new time calls for new politics, emphasizing economic strategy, citizen participation, and electoral strategy.

In 2004, Joel Rogers from the Center On Wisconsin Strategy, and Robert Borosage from IPS enlisted DSA friendly Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and SEIU President Andy Stern, to propose a new alliance of labor, environmental groups, business and "social justice" leaders - the Apollo Alliance. The Alliance, which soon included over 200 supporting organizations, released a report "High Road or Low Road? Job Quality in the New Green Economy" arguing for a ten-year program of investment in a “clean energy, good jobs” economy.''

Joel Rogers was the Alliance's founding chairman and continues to serve on its board. Borosage is also a board member, as is Leo Gerard. John Podesta from the Center for American Progress also serves, but took a break while co-chairing President Obama's "transition", where he

"coordinated the priorities of the incoming administration’s agenda, oversaw the development of its policies, and spearheaded its appointments of major cabinet secretaries and political appointees."

Podesta also looked after another Apollo Alliance board member Van Jones, giving him a job with Center for American Progress , when Jones was forced to exit the White House.

Besides Rogers, two old New Party affiliates are involved in the Apollo Alliance. Gerry Hudson of DSA and SEIU serves as a board member. Anthony Thigpenn serves on the Apollo Alliance advisory board and runs the Apollo affiliate in Los Angeles - which trains "anti racist environmental organizers."

Thigpenn is a former member of the Maoist leaning Black Panther Party, but that's pretty mild by Apollo standards. The former head of the New York Apollo Alliance Jeff Jones, once led the terrorist Weather Underground Organization with he and President Obama's 's mutual friends , Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Former DSA youth leader and SEIU organizer Ron Ruggiero, serves as Apollo Alliance National Field Director.

It's a safe bet that a good portion of the "stimulus package" $80 Billion dollars will be going to Van Jones' Green For All in San Francisco in San Francisco, to Anthony Thigpenn's "environmental anti racism" trainers in Los Angeles and Jeff Jones' former crew in New York.


Any good Leninist will tell you. It is not gaining power that is important, it is the KEEPING of power.

Joel Rogers' New Party, modeled the movement that put Obama in power. His Apollo Alliance provides a means for holding that power.

It is essentially a massive patronage system, where huge amounts of taxpayer's money is channeled into radical led "green" camouflaged mass organizations.

These "green" armies will be the vote herders of the future. They will confront the Tea Party movement and other patriots on the streets of America. They will be the paramilitary armies used to intimidate the very people who fund them.

In a January 2 2009, tribute to late to Democratic Socialists of America founder Michael Harrington, Gerry Hudson of the Apollo Alliance/SEIU/DSA wrote;

It’s tragic for so many reasons that Michael died too young; his voice and his wisdom are sorely needed. How he would marvel at the election of Barack Obama and the promise that this victory affords all of us on the democratic left! He is sorely missed. But were he alive, I would hope—and expect, that he and others who are informed by this vision of democratic socialism would join with us in SEIU as we seek to take advantage of a moment most of us have spent our lifetimes only dreaming of.

Joel Rogers is the glue that ties many of these threads together - Institute for Policy Studies, Democratic Socialists of America , ACORN, SEIU, New Party, the Apollo Alliance - even possibly the sub -prime mortgage crisis.

I believe, had there been no Joel Rogers, there likely would have been no President Barack Obama

Founding Fathers' Friday - Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams isn't 'that guy with the beer'. He's considered the Father of the American Revolution.
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Texas Straight Talk From Congressman Ron Paul, 14th District, Texas

Socialism vs Corporatism

Lately many have characterized this administration as socialist, or having strong socialist leanings. I differ with this characterization. This is not to say Mr. Obama believes in free-markets by any means. On the contrary, he has done and said much that demonstrates his fundamental misunderstanding and hostility towards the truly free market. But a closer, honest examination of his policies and actions in office reveals that, much like the previous administration, he is very much a corporatist. This in many ways can be more insidious and worse than being an outright socialist.

Socialism is a system where the government directly owns and manages businesses. Corporatism is a system where businesses are nominally in private hands, but are in fact controlled by the government. In a corporatist state, government officials often act in collusion with their favored business interests to design polices that give those interests a monopoly position, to the detriment of both competitors and consumers.

A careful examination of the policies pursued by the Obama administration and his allies in Congress shows that their agenda is corporatist. For example, the health care bill that recently passed does not establish a Canadian-style government-run single payer health care system. Instead, it relies on mandates forcing every American to purchase private health insurance or pay a fine. It also includes subsidies for low-income Americans and government-run health care "exchanges". Contrary to the claims of the proponents of the health care bill, large insurance and pharmaceutical companies were enthusiastic supporters of many provisions of this legislation because they knew in the end their bottom lines would be enriched by Obamacare.

Similarly, Obama's "cap-and-trade" legislation provides subsidies and specials privileges to large businesses that engage in "carbon trading." This is why large corporations, such as General Electric support cap-and-trade.

To call the President a corporatist is not to soft-pedal criticism of his administration. It is merely a more accurate description of the President’s agenda.

When he is a called a socialist, the President and his defenders can easily deflect that charge by pointing out that the historical meaning of socialism is government ownership of industry; under the President’s policies, industry remains in nominally private hands. Using the more accurate term – corporatism - forces the President to defend his policies that increase government control of private industries and expand de facto subsidies to big businesses. This also promotes the understanding that though the current system may not be pure socialism, neither is it free-market since government controls the private sector through taxes, regulations, and subsidies, and has done so for decades.

Using precise terms can prevent future statists from successfully blaming the inevitable failure of their programs on the remnants of the free market that are still allowed to exist. We must not allow the disastrous results of corporatism to be ascribed incorrectly to free market capitalism or used as a justification for more government expansion. Most importantly, we must learn what freedom really is and educate others on how infringements on our economic liberties caused our economic woes in the first place. Government is the problem; it cannot be the solution.

Posted by Ron Paul (04-26-2010, 11:48 AM) filed under Civil Liberties

Playing The Puerto Rico Card - IBD - Investors.com

Playing The Puerto Rico Card - IBD - Investors.com

Violent Leftists Raid NYC Bank & Takeover Lobby… Media Silent

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, April 29, 2010, 3:15 PM

Violent Leftist Activists stormed a NY City bank this afternoon and took over the lobby.
The leftist anti-capitalist group stormed the bank, shut down operations, started chanting in the lobby and demanded homes and union jobs.
For some odd reason the state-run media does not report this as a “violent protest.”

(AP)

The AP whitewashed reported:

Noisy protesters with signs took over two bank building lobbies on Thursday in a prelude to a Wall Street rally by workers and union leaders angry over lost jobs, the taxpayer-funded bailout of financial institutions and questionable lending practices by big banks.

Hours before the scheduled rally, more than 100 people entered a midtown Manhattan building housing JPMorgan Chase offices. They handed a bank executive a letter requesting a meeting with the CEO, and chanted “Bust up! Big banks!” and “People power!”

A half-hour later, they were calmly escorted outside by officers, who remained expressionless as the protesters chanted, “The police need a raise.”

They then walked a few blocks up Park Avenue and crowded into the lobby of the Seagram Building, where Wells Fargo and the bank it merged with in 2008, Wachovia, have offices.

The protesters held up signs reading, “Save Our Jobs” and “Save Our Homes.” One included a Great Depression-era photograph. Police arrived on horseback as curious office workers watched the scene unfold from their windows.

“We’re here today to stop the corporate greed that is ruining our neighborhoods,” said Andrea Goldman, 59, of Springfield, Mass., who’s part of a group called Alliance to Develop Power.

Andrea Goldman is a co-chair of the shakedown group – Alliance to Develop Power. The Alliance to Develop Power/ADP of Springfield, MA has been successful at reclaiming social and economic power through cooperative economic development, resulting in the creation of business and capital holdings collectively valued at over $50 million.

JWF added: “Of course as we predicted earlier today nowhere is it mentioned this “diverse mixture” was organized primarily by an Obama “economic adviser” and assorted Obama-supporting groups.”

Glenn Beck Show From April 29, 2010

The United States Government is now Crime, Inc. Glenn has uncovered even more on the cap-and-trade scam that will blow your mind... what is wrong with the rest of the media? Tonight, what cap-and-trade really means... and why it's being pushed.
The connections: The Joyce Foundation, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Chicago Climate Exchange, The Tides Foundation, Goldman Sachs, Franklin Raines, Al Gore, Van Jones, Generation Investment Management, Fannie Mae, Enterprise Community Partners, Center for American Progress, The Emerald Cities Collaborative, Green for All, The New Party, The Apollo Alliance, Joel Rogers

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Update: From the Glenn Beck radio show of May 3, 2010. New Joel Rogers audio.

The New Arizona Law

I'm posting links to the new Arizona immigration bill so you can see the wording for yourself.

The Arizona House Bill
The Arizona Senate Bill

Wording from the House bill:

"B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR A LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY OF A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON, EXCEPT IF THE DETERMINATION MAY HINDER OR OBSTRUCT AN INVESTIGATION. ANY PERSON WHO IS ARRESTED SHALL HAVE THE PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS DETERMINED BEFORE THE PERSON IS RELEASED. THE PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c). A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY NOT SOLELY CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN IN IMPLEMENTING THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SUBSECTION EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE UNITED STATES OR ARIZONA CONSTITUTION. A PERSON IS PRESUMED TO NOT BE AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES IF THE PERSON PROVIDES TO THE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER OR AGENCY ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. A VALID ARIZONA DRIVER LICENSE.
2. A VALID ARIZONA NONOPERATING IDENTIFICATION LICENSE.
3. A VALID TRIBAL ENROLLMENT CARD OR OTHER FORM OF TRIBAL IDENTIFICATION.
4. IF THE ENTITY REQUIRES PROOF OF LEGAL PRESENCE IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE ISSUANCE, ANY VALID UNITED STATES FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENT ISSUED IDENTIFICATION.

A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE MAY NOT SOLELY CONSIDER RACE, COLOR OR NATIONAL ORIGIN IN IMPLEMENTING THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS SUBSECTION EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE UNITED STATES OR ARIZONA CONSTITUTION."

Wording from the Senate bill:

"B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c)."

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I'm also posting the Federal Sections for comparison:

TITLE 8, CHAPTER 12, SUBCHAPTER II, Part VIII, § 1324a
§ 1324a. Unlawful employment of aliens

TITLE 8, CHAPTER 12, SUBCHAPTER I, § 1103
Powers and duties of the Secretary, the Under Secretary, and the Attorney General

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UPDATE JULY 31, 2010

§ 1103. Powers and duties of the Secretary, the Under Secretary, and the Attorney General

(a) Secretary of Homeland Security

(1) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall be charged with the administration and enforcement of this chapter and all other laws relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens, except insofar as this chapter or such laws relate to the powers, functions, and duties conferred upon the President, Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the officers of the Department of State, or diplomatic or consular officers: Provided, however, That determination and ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all questions of law shall be controlling.

(2) He shall have control, direction, and supervision of all employees and of all the files and records of the Service.

(3) He shall establish such regulations; prescribe such forms of bond, reports, entries, and other papers; issue such instructions; and perform such other acts as he deems necessary for carrying out his authority under the provisions of this chapter.

(4) He may require or authorize any employee of the Service or the Department of Justice to perform or exercise any of the powers, privileges, or duties conferred or imposed by this chapter or regulations issued thereunder upon any other employee of the Service.

(5) He shall have the power and duty to control and guard the boundaries and borders of the United States against the illegal entry of aliens and shall, in his discretion, appoint for that purpose such number of employees of the Service as to him shall appear necessary and proper.

(6) He is authorized to confer or impose upon any employee of the United States, with the consent of the head of the Department or other independent establishment under whose jurisdiction the employee is serving, any of the powers, privileges, or duties conferred or imposed by this chapter or regulations issued thereunder upon officers or employees of the Service.

(7) He may, with the concurrence of the Secretary of State, establish offices of the Service in foreign countries; and, after consultation with the Secretary of State, he may, whenever in his judgment such action may be necessary to accomplish the purposes of this chapter, detail employees of the Service for duty in foreign countries.

(8) After consultation with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General may authorize officers of a foreign country to be stationed at preclearance facilities in the United States for the purpose of ensuring that persons traveling from or through the United States to that foreign country comply with that country’s immigration and related laws.

(9) Those officers may exercise such authority and perform such duties as United States immigration officers are authorized to exercise and perform in that foreign country under reciprocal agreement, and they shall enjoy such reasonable privileges and immunities necessary for the performance of their duties as the government of their country extends to United States immigration officers.

(10) In the event the Attorney General determines that an actual or imminent mass influx of aliens arriving off the coast of the United States, or near a land border, presents urgent circumstances requiring an immediate Federal response, the Attorney General may authorize any State or local law enforcement officer, with the consent of the head of the department, agency, or establishment under whose jurisdiction the individual is serving, to perform or exercise any of the powers, privileges, or duties conferred or imposed by this chapter or regulations issued thereunder upon officers or employees of the Service.

(11) The Attorney General, in support of persons in administrative detention in non-Federal institutions, is authorized—

(A) to make payments from funds appropriated for the administration and enforcement of the laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and alien registration for necessary clothing, medical care, necessary guard hire, and the housing, care, and security of persons detained by the Service pursuant to Federal law under an agreement with a State or political subdivision of a State; and

(B) to enter into a cooperative agreement with any State, territory, or political subdivision thereof, for the necessary construction, physical renovation, acquisition of equipment, supplies or materials required to establish acceptable conditions of confinement and detention services in any State or unit of local government which agrees to provide guaranteed bed space for persons detained by the Service.

(b) Land acquisition authority

(1) The Attorney General may contract for or buy any interest in land, including temporary use rights, adjacent to or in the vicinity of an international land border when the Attorney General deems the land essential to control and guard the boundaries and borders of the United States against any violation of this chapter.

(2) The Attorney General may contract for or buy any interest in land identified pursuant to paragraph (1) as soon as the lawful owner of that interest fixes a price for it and the Attorney General considers that price to be reasonable.

(3) When the Attorney General and the lawful owner of an interest identified pursuant to paragraph (1) are unable to agree upon a reasonable price, the Attorney General may commence condemnation proceedings pursuant to section 3113 of title 40.

(4) The Attorney General may accept for the United States a gift of any interest in land identified pursuant to paragraph (1).

(c) Commissioner; appointment

The Commissioner shall be a citizen of the United States and shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. He shall be charged with any and all responsibilities and authority in the administration of the Service and of this chapter which are conferred upon the Attorney General as may be delegated to him by the Attorney General or which may be prescribed by the Attorney General. The Commissioner may enter into cooperative agreements with State and local law enforcement agencies for the purpose of assisting in the enforcement of the immigration laws.

(d) Statistical information system

(1) The Commissioner, in consultation with interested academicians, government agencies, and other parties, shall provide for a system for collection and dissemination, to Congress and the public, of information (not in individually identifiable form) useful in evaluating the social, economic, environmental, and demographic impact of immigration laws.

(2) Such information shall include information on the alien population in the United States, on the rates of naturalization and emigration of resident aliens, on aliens who have been admitted, paroled, or granted asylum, on nonimmigrants in the United States (by occupation, basis for admission, and duration of stay), on aliens who have not been admitted or have been removed from the United States, on the number of applications filed and granted for cancellation of removal, and on the number of aliens estimated to be present unlawfully in the United States in each fiscal year.

(3) Such system shall provide for the collection and dissemination of such information not less often than annually.

(e) Annual report

(1) The Commissioner shall submit to Congress annually a report which contains a summary of the information collected under subsection (d) of this section and an analysis of trends in immigration and naturalization.

(2) Each annual report shall include information on the number, and rate of denial administratively, of applications for naturalization, for each district office of the Service and by national origin group.

(f) Minimum number of agents in States
The Attorney General shall allocate to each State not fewer than 10 full-time active duty agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to carry out the functions of the Service, in order to ensure the effective enforcement of this chapter.

(g) Attorney General

(1) In general
The Attorney General shall have such authorities and functions under this chapter and all other laws relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens as were exercised by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or by the Attorney General with respect to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, on the day before the effective date of the Immigration Reform, Accountability and Security Enhancement Act of 2002.

(2) Powers
The Attorney General shall establish such regulations, prescribe such forms of bond, reports, entries, and other papers, issue such instructions, review such administrative determinations in immigration proceedings, delegate such authority, and perform such other acts as the Attorney General determines to be necessary for carrying out this section.

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UPDATE: September 3, 2010

§ 1304. Forms for registration and fingerprinting

(d) Certificate of alien registration or alien receipt card

Every alien in the United States who has been registered and fingerprinted under the provisions of the Alien Registration Act, 1940, or under the provisions of this chapter shall be issued a certificate of alien registration or an alien registration receipt card in such form and manner and at such time as shall be prescribed under regulations issued by the Attorney General.

(e) Personal possession of registration or receipt card; penalties

Every alien, eighteen years of age and over, shall at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration or alien registration receipt card issued to him pursuant to subsection (d) of this section. Any alien who fails to comply with the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction for each offense be fined not to exceed $100 or be imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both.

(f) Alien’s social security account number

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Attorney General is authorized to require any alien to provide the alien’s social security account number for purposes of inclusion in any record of the alien maintained by the Attorney General or the Service.