This man’s accomplishments are extraordinary…
His story is explosive!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
LIFE Magazine: "Bernard Sansaricq, sad-eyed, soft-spoken scion of a long-established, widely respected and prestigious dynasty of merchants and business executives; a highly-intelligent, competent action-leader with an impeccable record of honesty; superbly qualified to lead..."
Dick Morris: Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled
Dick Morris, author of the New York Times Best Selling Novel, “Catastrophe”, joined Sean on the NewsMaker hotline to discuss the latest polls suggesting the GOP can make headway in the 2010 elections. “The most important poll is the New Jersey and Virgina election results,” retorted Morris. Dick wrote a great piece this morning called, “We Can Win In The Senate,” where he reminds his readers that ObamaCare can still be defeated in the Senate. “Let not your heart be troubled,” he wrote to his audience, a phrase that’s all too familiar to Sean’s audience, Senators Lieberman, Bayh, Hagan, Landrieu, Pryor and Lincoln may still vote no on the legislation. “The key is to keep fighting,” argued Sean. It’s important that we stay focused on stopping this legislation; it would be the greatest Thanksgiving gift we could give America. Read Dick’s latest work here.
Lawsuits Coming!
Sean kicked off the show covering the day’s headlines including reports that FBI agents were reportedly searching trash cans outside a Mosque attended by Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan. “I can hear the lawsuits starting already, “argued Sean, “they’re going to scream Islamaphobia!” It appeared that the FBI was looking to make sure that Major Nidal Hasan was operating alone and they had reports that some evidence existed at a Killeen, Texas mosque. The question is, regardless of religion, the answers to why this Fort Hood massacre occurred and to make sure that it won’t happen again? Read the ABC News coverage here.
Today’s “Hot Topic” From The Hannity Forums:
Do You Believe America Is An Expansionistic Country? – Posted by Lucchese
That's pretty much the question: Is America a ruthlessly expansionist country or do we mind our own business? Thoughts? My answer is yes. From the applications of Manifest Destiny to conquer the entire continent, our economic emporium over the Western Hemisphere, to our beginning as a saltwater empire with the Spanish-American War, through to our pinnacle of power during the post-Cold War, we have always been expanding our power base since the inception of this country.
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>> TV Tonight (Hannity FOXNews 9pm EST):
Candid, controversial and completely unleashed! It's one hour of pure Sean!
In a highly partisan debate American Democrats in the House of Representatives took one more step toward destroying American healthcare. They found the 218 votes they needed to push though ObamaCare. Democrats ignored a mountain of more that 609,000 faxes from AmeriPac supporters and told Americans that their government does not listen to them.
Obama, Pelosi and the Democrats have shut Americans out of the Healthcare debate and ready or not THEY RUSHED, PUSHED AND PASSED A FINAL HOUSE OBAMACARE VOTE ON SATURDAY without debate. The final bill vote had been delayed by a growing list of Democrats having ObamaCare remorse.
The OBAMA SHOCK AND AWE ATTACK LEGISLATION threatened enough Democrats to barely win the majority 218 votes. Pelosi is Ramming ObamaCare Down America's Throat!
The focus is now on the Senate and we must continue to tell Democratic leaders not to compromise on provisions that are leaving many questioning the viability of the bill.
Reid says ObamaCare cannot pass until next year now is the time to redouble our efforts, target Blue Dog Democrats be sure that all Republicans fight to KILL ObamaCare.
With 111 NEW bureaucracies in Pelosi's H.R. 3962
Higher Premium Costs And Taxes Are The ONLY Sure Thing!
The new legislation still leaves unanswered many questions.
We must now STOP Obama and his dangerous and destructive plan in the Senate.
It is all a big game to Obama to rollout the 1,900-page bill not even reviewed by the CBO that has produced even more questions about its costs and its ability to reduce the deficit. Initial REPORTS FROM CAPITAL HILL SHOW DISAPPOINTMENT FROM LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS alike about what is in the bill and what's been left out.
ObamaCare Must Be Stopped - With Your Help We Can Do It NOW!
SELECT HERE FAX NOW TO STOP ObamaCare! https://secure.conservativedonations.com/ameripac_onoobamacare/?a=3207
The fight continues and your help is needed now more than ever.
Please don't delay -- Congress is in session right now, and if we don't stand up and FIGHT against the radical Left, there might be nothing left of the America we know and love for our children! Take action now!
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From Sunlen Miller:
During an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Jake Tapper today, President Obama said that penalties are appropriate for people who try to “free ride” the health care system but stopped short of endorsing the threat of jail time for those who refuse to pay a fine for not having insurance.
We will also be answering your questions live in the interactive broadcast. So come over to CPNLIVE.com at 8:00 EST, 7:00 CST, 6:00 MST, or 5:00 PST. If you cannot join us them you can watch the broadcast anytime in the CPNLIVE.com show library.
This is your opportunity to ask questions about impeachment. We will also have live discussion in the chat room hosted by our own Inga O’Connor and Caleb Heimlich of the ImpeachObamaCampaign.com crew.
Barack Obama fails to mention Terrorism at Ft Hood Memorial
Barack Obama sounded foolish yesterday at the memorial service for the 13 fall heroes at Ft Hood in Texas. He sounded foolish because he refuses to acknowledge the culpability of radical Islam in the events. He wants to divorce the beliefs of Nidal M. Hasan from murderous rampage
Mounting evidence such as dozens of emails to the radical Imam with ties to the 9-11 hijackers, Anwar al-Awlaki, formally of Falls Church Virginia and recently of Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, demonstrate that Obama and the Army brass are in denial about Hasan. This was a premeditated act of jihad right down to the ritual cleansing robes captured that morning on a security cam.
The Washington Post even reported an explosive presentation given by Hasan to Army officers outlining his radical ideas. No denying their knowledge now:
“As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.
Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.
‘It's getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,’ he said in the presentation.
‘It was really strange,’ said one staff member who attended the presentation and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the investigation of Hasan. ‘The senior doctors looked really upset’ at the end.”
Obama, the Army and the FBI should have removed him from the officer corp after this presentation alone. But the new Obama Army turns its head and ignores radical Islamic jihadist officers in its own ranks.
Obama Subsidizing America’s Islamic Adversaries
If ignoring the jihadists in America isn’t bad enough, how about subsidizing them. The Canada Free Press reports in a story sure to be spiked in the lapdog media the whole story:
“'Islamic jihadists remain the most serious threat against America today, despite President Barack Obama’s effort to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world,' observes Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International. Unfortunately, 'Islamic radicals have not reciprocated the president’s attempted outreach.'
Earlier this year the president made a celebrated speech in Cairo to promote better relations with the Islamic world but, notes Jacobson, 'the primary problem is the hostility of organized Islam to members of other faiths.' That hostility starts with persecution against Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities in Muslim nations around the globe.
Now the administration has created a new and expensive technology fund for Islamic countries. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation is providing up to $150 million to 'catalyze and facilitate private sector investments.' Target industries include computers and telecommunications.”
Why create jobs in America when we can create them for our enemies?
Obama Flees America’s Problems
No wonder Obama is leaving the country. Whenever the job gets too tough this weak man heads for the exits. This week's stop on Obama’s great adventure is South Asia. NewsMax Reports:
“Barack Obama this week makes his first trip to Asia as president, leaving behind a host of domestic problems with a visit that recognizes the region's economic and diplomatic importance to the United States.
The trip, which starts on Thursday, will take Obama to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore.
But the critical leg will come in China, where Obama will have to navigate an increasingly complex relationship with the country that is the largest holder of U.S. foreign debt and its second-largest trading partner.”
Let’s hope he does better in China than he did in Britain. They are still talking in London about how he offended Queen Elizabeth.
One of the reasons Obama deserves to be impeached is he spends more time traveling than dealing with an economy which continues to sink under his leadership. WND.com’s Jerome Corsi reported recently that the real unemployment rate is over 22 percent.
Poll Deaf. If you feel ignored by the House of Representatives, you're not alone. A Rasmussen Reports poll this week reaffirmed that more Americans oppose (52%) health care legislation than favor (45%) it. Nevertheless, as last Saturday's legislative spectacle attests, Speaker Pelosi is still singing the health care tune.
Go Directly to Jail. As you know, in the 1,990-page bill that squeaked (220-215) out of the House on Saturday there's plenty of bad policy to fill this letter (and several more). What you may not know is that failing to comply with the new requirements in this legislation could land you in jail - for up to five years!
The most appalling effect of the Affordable Health Care for America Act is the extent of control which the federal government would exercise over individual health care decisions. The legislation requires you to purchase health insurance, whether you need it or want it, and dictates the parameters of your policy. What's more, failure to purchase insurance would result in a slew of fines and, as this letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation makes clear, failure to pay the fines would result in criminal penalties including "a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years."
AARP: Abandoning Seniors, Advancing AARP. In apparent disregard for the interests of senior citizens, the AARP supported the House health care bill, including the following provisions:
$500 billion in overall budget cuts for Medicare.
$170 billion in budget cuts for Medicare Advantage-the program's entire budget-leaving 12 million American seniors with fewer health care options.
A 20% cut in doctor's pay, forcing doctors to take on more patients and spend less time with each person in their care.
Why would the AARP endorse legislation which so clearly hurts the interests of senior citizens? You decide! For facts on how you will be affected by this legislation, click on this link to get the facts.
FIGHT BACK! The next stop on the runaway train known as ObamaCare is the floor of the United States Senate. Help us derail Ms. Pelosi's health care legislation by writing your Senators. The American people deserve better than what's coming down the tracks and you can help put a stop to it. Click on the link below and send a letter to Congress telling them to JUST SAY NO to health care legislation.
Thank you again for your support of the "Free Our Health Care NOW!" and for fighting against government-run health care. This is a fight worth fighting and a fight we can win!
Jeanette Nordstrom
National Center for Policy Analysis
www.ncpa.org
EVERY SATURDAY 1:00-3:00 P.M. SINCE FEBRUARY 28th 2009
N.E. CORNER OF OAKLAND PARK BLVD. & U.S. 1
BRING YOUR SIGNS, FLAGS, AND AMERICAN SPIRIT
WE ARE NOW RECEIVING OVER 600 HONKS PER HOUR
COME STAND IN PROTEST OF DESTRUCTIVE,
UNCONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES.
BIG GOVERNMENT THREATENS OUR GREAT NATION!!!
LET’S TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK!!!
ONE VOICE: “WE THE PEOPLE”
THIS
This is our 35th consecutive week!
Bulletin: Coming November 14... On our corner
Great news! The longest-running Tea Party in America, our very own "Tea Party Fort Lauderdale" has been asked to be part of a national ANTI-AMNESTY kick-off! Floridians for Immigration Enforcement (FLIMEN) and Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC) have called for an across-the-nation rally on Saturday, November 14. "TeapartyFTL" will partner with these two organizations using our weekly venue at Oakland and Federal to be seen and heard.
Please plan to come. Make your signs ahead of time for that day. Let's be all about an ANTI-AMNESTY theme for that particular rally.
Thanks and congratulations to the Jupiter/Lakeworth group who have marched every Saturday for the past 1-1/2 years in front of the illegal hiring hall in an effort to shut it down.
Thanks and congratulations to all the Tea PartyFTL people who have sacrificed and stood on our corner... rain or shine, for the past 35 weeks!
Obama, Pelosi, and Reid along with many others are feverishly working overtime to destroy our Constitution and change America forever: Obamacare, Cap-and-Trade, 1st and 2nd amendment rights, to name a few. Amnesty will be the beginning-of-the-end because it will create a one-party system, and will forever remain an irreversible state of affairs of mostly uneducated immigrants living off our system. We cannot allow illegal immigration to become legal immigration. We MUST stop this unlawful madness.
Please mark your calendars, stand with us on that day, tell your family and friends, and forward your emails. Much more information to follow in the days ahead.
"We've got bedbugs back in all, almost all of our 58 [sic] states. We've got TB on the rise, we've got hepatitis, we've got HIV, we've got diseases like Chagas disease, which is a horrifying disease, but also, much like TB, is very, very difficult to treat at all, and it's coming in because of the, the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws and, and the end result is Americans are suffering, Americans are dying." William Gheen
"We got a problem. Well I got some news. According to some rough math I did 20 minutes ago, we’re getting four to ten TB active cases rushing across our southern border every night" William Gheen
“demand that the southern border be closed to all non essential traffic and that military troops are deployed to stop the nightly flow of thousands of illegal immigrants into America.” William Gheen
As many anti-immigrant groups blur the line between discussions of immigration policy and outright bigotry towards non-white immigrants, white supremacists and anti-Semites have become increasingly supportive of those groups whose rhetoric matches their own anti-immigrant sentiment. Extremists exploit the legitimacy of these anti-immigrant groups to advance their own hateful ideology and possibly expand recruitment.
Specifically, extremists have voiced support for Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC), which claims to support "control and reversal" of undocumented immigration but really disseminates its message with virulent, anti-immigrant rhetoric. White supremacists and anti-Semites have promoted the group by engaging in activity on its behalf and posting links to ALIPAC's Web site on their own Web sites and forums.
Taking Action on Behalf of ALIPAC
White supremacists and racist skinheads have encouraged their followers to engage in activity on behalf of ALIPAC. These calls to action have included the promotion of ALIPAC-directed protests, rallies, and citizen lobbying of elected officials.
The Vinlanders Social Club, a hardcore racist skinhead group based primarily in the Midwest, posted a piece to its Web site in which ALIPAC called for participation in the April 15 Tea Party, anti-tax protests that took place in cities across the country. The announcement on the Vinlanders Web site encouraged "supporters to attend the rallies and to setup tables where possible to circulate fliers…"
The Vinlanders have also encouraged their members and followers to lobby elected officials as a part of an ALIPAC campaign to secure the passage of anti-immigrant legislation. The Vinlander Web site administrator posted the lobbying instructions from ALIPAC in addition to a message which read, "Please take 20 minutes to assist."
Western Voices World News (WVWN), the news Web site of the white supremacist European Americans United group, featured information about an April 2009 demonstration organized by ALIPAC and two other groups in North Carolina. In addition to language about the demonstration's purpose, which was to support anti-immigrant legislation, readers on the white supremacist site were given the date, time, and mapped location of the event so that they could participate.
WVWN also posted an article from the ALIPAC Web site which called on supporters to contact their Congressional representatives to demand that the Obama Administration close the American-Mexican border in the wake of the H1N1 flu outbreak. Anti-immigrant groups are exploiting the epidemic to advance their demonizing claims against Mexico and its people as disease carriers.
Promoting ALIPAC's Activity and Statements
Additionally, anti-Semites and white supremacists posting on extremist forums promote ALIPAC, its activity, and Gheen's statements. These extremists look to ALIPAC and use the group's Web site and ideology to fuel their own hatred of non-white immigrants.
In a post to the forum of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), the largest neo-Nazi group in the country, a Texas-based member wrote that he signed one of the group's petitions (which he referred to as a "pention"). Like other neo-Nazi groups, the NSM has worked to capitalize on anti-immigration sentiment in America, both to spread its hateful message and recruit a larger following.
The Vanguard News Network forum, run by neo-Nazi Alex Linder who gave the forum a slogan of "No Jews, Just Right," features discussion threads in which individuals posted links to the ALIPAC Web site and other Gheen-related material. For example, in early 2009, an individual using the screen name "ZOG CONTROL" praised and posted links to two of Gheen's Internet radio shows. He also commented that "Gheen is not able to be openly pro-White." (ZOG refers to the "Zionist Occupied Government," a phrase used by anti-Semites to suggest that the Jewish people are engaged in a conspiracy to control not only government bodies, but several other social institutions.)
The administrator of the forum of the Vinlanders Social Club posted a request from ALIPAC for individuals to lobby an Indiana government official to facilitate the passage of legislation which would empower local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law and mandate that employers verify the immigration status of their employees. Forum members responded by taking action and, as one Kentucky-based member wrote, "joining the fight."
Links to ALIPAC's Web site and support for the group appears in several places on Stormfront, the largest and most popular white supremacist forum. One member provided a link to ALIPAC's site and wrote that the group "holds some of our tenents [sic]." Another member posted a link to the list of ALIPAC's upcoming events, and under each post made by a Texas-based Stormfront member, a call to "PLEASE SUPPORT ALIPAC" is featured.
Featuring links to and Complete Pieces from the ALIPAC Web site
Anti-Semitic and white supremacists Web sites also feature links to and complete pieces from the ALIPAC Web site.
In early April 2009, the Web site of American Free Press, a virulently anti-Semitic newspaper, featured a front-page link to an article on the ALIPAC Web site. The newspaper's Web site also featured a November 2008 article by Gheen and information about ALIPAC. American Free Press is published by Willis Carto, one of the most influential American anti-Semitic propagandists of the past 50 years. Carto also publishes The Barnes Review, a Holocaust denial magazine.
The Web site of American Renaissance, a white supremacist journal, has featured a number of articles that either originate from ALIPAC's Web site or discuss the group. Most recently, the American Renaissance Web site posted an April 2009 piece written by William Gheen in which he described his experience at an anti-immigrant event at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. American Renaissance described ALIPAC as a "non-white pressure group."
David Duke, an anti-Semite and white supremacist, has featured several pieces from ALIPAC on his Web site, including articles about the group's activity. Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, was arrested in April 2009 in the Czech Republic on suspicions that he was spreading Holocaust denial.
Anyways, about the complaint about the Administration withholding information, this has already been debunked. Hoekstra is complaining...well I don't know what he's complaining about. He was briefed but I guess he wasn't happy because...well I don't know what the hell his problem is. Maybe he's just preoccupied about what other intelligence operations he can expose to the media.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) is blasting President Obama for withholding from the Congressional intelligence committees information on the Fort Hood killings suspect, while at the same time acknowledging the leaders of those panels -- including Hoekstra himself -- have indeed been briefed on Nidal Malik Hasan.
"President Obama said people should not jump to conclusions about what happened at Fort Hood, but the administration is in possession of critical information related to the attack that they are refusing to release to Congress or the American people," Hoekstra said in a statement.
Hoekstra's beef is not that the Obama Administration, including the CIA, haven't released any information. Rather, he's upset that only the Gang of Eight, not the full intelligence committees, have been briefed -- and that the information released has been "limited."
The Gang of Eight, made up of the GOP and Dem leaders of both houses of Congress along with the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intel committees, is provided with information deemed particularly sensitive by the executive branch. Hoekstra is the ranking member of the House panel.
Hoekstra's statement says:
Hoekstra said he was concerned that more information had been provided, piecemeal, to the news media by anonymous sources than had yet been provided to the Committee. He criticized the Obama administration for not being more immediately forthcoming with details and specifically requested information, and for restricting the limited information provided so far to the so-called "Gang of Eight."Earlier today, ABC News quoted a senior lawmaker, later revealed to be Hoekstra, claiming that "the CIA had, so far, refused to brief the intelligence committees on what, if any, knowledge they had about Hasan's efforts" to attempt to contact unspecified people associated with al Qaeda. The CIA responded by denying it had refused to brief Congress.
Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Hoekstra, told TPMmuckraker that the congressman's concerns are not centered on the CIA. "We're not suggesting that CIA is the beginning or the end of this in any shape or form," Ware says. "Congressman Hoekstra believes the committee has a process to go through here -- to see what the intelligence agencies, plural, had relative to this threat, and what they did with the information that was in their possession."
In a Nov. 7 letter to the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, CIA, and NSA, Hoekstra requested the agencies issue a preservation order to protect any documents that might relate to the Fort Hood case.
Wait, you might be saying "why does Willie Horton" sound familiar? Was it something I might have read recently?" Yes, you're probably thinking about Floyd Brown (who I posted about here http://miami.craigslist.org/pbc/pol/1457941542.html). Floyd was also part of the team that produced the "Willie Horton" ads during the Dukakis campaign. And as I stated in the post, he willingly aligns himself with the birther cheerleaders and Orly Taitz supporters at WND. WND, as we all know, tried to connect Maj Hasan (the alleged Ft Hood killer) to Obama by trying to claim he was an advisor to Obama's transition team. WND made a lame sort of retraction, but didn't change the story.
Grassfire.org is also the primary sponsor of Resistnet.com which has been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the rallying organzations in the resurgent militia movement calling for armed violence and resistance.
These so called "grassroots" organizations actually have a long history of lobbying and campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates and issues. They are not, as they are trying to claim, spontaneous groups of citizens that arose to fight healthcare or climate change or whatever. They will fight whatever hoes against Republican (now ultra conservatives) issues and have been at it for a long time so have had a lot of practice. What they do well is convincing gullible people who might have legitimate problems into believing they found a group of like minded people instead of corporate shills that could care less about them except as fodder.
House Health-Care Bill Does Not Rule Out Paying Federal Funds to Health Providers Who Withhold Food, Water From Patients
(CNSNews.com) – The Democrats' health-care bill, which cleared the House on Saturday, says federal funds cannot be used to promote assisted suicide. But Rep. Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-La.), a surgeon and congressman, says the bill does not rule out the use of federal funds to reimburse doctors who provide “end-of-life care” that involves removing food and water.
Democrats’ Health Care Plan Will ‘Shred Constitution,’ Hoekstra Says
(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that the health care bill pushed by the Democratic House leadership will “shred the Constitution” and that Democrats have not given Republicans “any time to showcase” their ideas on health care reform. “I mean, the thing we need to do right now is just point out how ugly the Pelosi bill is,” Hoekstra told CNSNews.com at a Nov. 5 rally on Capitol Hill to protest the Democrats’ health care bill.
What is a 'saved' job exactly? Most economists are left scratching their heads because it's a completely made up statistic. Well, finally some numbers are coming in on what the government considers a saved job. The results are astounding -- not because they were a success. They were astounding because this is one of the worst attempts at spin in political history - claiming jobs 'successes' in the midst of 10.2% unemployment and shedding 2.2 million jobs. Even David Gregory isn't buying the spin. It's all in the latest 'Beck Talks' (hosted by Stu, in for Glenn) video blog. WATCH
Top 10 videos
The top ten finalists for Glenn's Arguing with Idiots YouTube Video Contest are in, and the voting officially ends this Friday at midnight! The video with the most views is the winner, so watch them all, pick your favorite, and start forwarding them around! See if you can help make your fav a winner. The 10 finalists all did a fantastic job - check em out HERE.
What journalism looks like
Jake Tapper, one of the few guys in the press who actually gets it and hammers both sides, sat down with the President and gave him a thorough questioning on healthcare and more. Fair yet tough, all journalists should take notice of what Tapper does on a day to day basis to both Republicans and Democrats. He presses the President on many sticking points including federal funding for abortions and possible jail time for not purchasing healthcare. And what does the President take from the NY-23 race? WATCH
Arguing with Idiots - Kevin in Columbus
Pat took a call from Kevin in Columbus, who claimed neither Pat nor Glenn is giving Barack Obama a fair chance. Pat asks Kevin to make the case in defense of the Obama presidency so far and his response should lay to rest any doubt that these first 10 months have been a disaster for the President. Everything he's passed hasn't worked, unemployment is skyrocketing, Democrats are losing elections, and he's proposing massive entitlement programs that will pile on to the deficit. But that doesn't stop our idiot of the day, caller Kevin from Columbus, from trying to defend it. ( Transcript, Insider Audio)
The Washington Post reports today that "White House communications director Anita Dunn will step down from her post at the end of the month and Dan Pfeiffer, her deputy, will take over, according to sources familiar with the move." Dunn, as you may recall, found herself to be the subject of Glenn Beck's considerable ire, following her apt description of Fox News as an "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Beck repeatedly smeared Dunn and grossly distorted her words to claim, among other things, that she "worships" and "idolizes" "her hero" Mao Zedong. In smearing Dunn, Beck overlooked that numerous conservatives -- including Barry Goldwater's "alter ego" Stephen C. Shadegg, Newt Gingrich, and GOP strategist Ralph Reed -- have approvingly cited the tactics of Mao, Vladimir Lenin, and the Viet Cong, stated that they had used those tactics in their political work or have otherwise highlighted their philosophies.
“To know your enemy, know yourself, and know the terrain, in countless battles you will be victorious”.
Art of War, Sun Tzu
On Saturday, 31 October I attended the farewell services for a fallen Comrade, Army Specialist Daniel Courtney Lawson a Son, Husband, and Father of three. SPC Lawson’s life was cut short due to an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Arghandab Valley, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
It just happens that is an area of which I am quite familiar because of a 2 ˝-year assignment I spent based out of Kandahar as an advisor to the Afghan National Army from June 2005-November 2007.
As I drove back down I-95 from Daniel’s final resting place I pondered, “How do we defeat this enemy”? My immediate answer went to Sun Tzu’s prescient strategic maxim.
First we must understand the enemy against whom we are engaged in truly a global conflagration. We continue to think of Afghanistan as a “war” within itself, which it is not. Afghanistan is a theater of operations within a greater engagement, War, against radical Islamic totalitarianism and state sponsored terrorism.
It is a War which extends to every area of the world, and right here in our America. We have to stop trying to define this enemy in comfortable, politically correct definitions. It is not just about Taliban or Al Qaeda, should they change their name can we declare victory?
When we clearly understand the enemy and their strategic perspective we can then delineate the goals and objectives to defeat them.
It requires the leaders of this Country to study and understand Islamic culture and recognize that no Islamic Republic can be “democratized”. The Koran does not support recognition of secular government, only the supposed word of Allah as a means of governance. We must understand what Sharia Law is and what does it promote.
What has been our major failure?
We have gone away from, what we call in military lexicon, being oriented on the enemy to a terrain orientation. This has resulted in “nation building” which dilutes your focus and drains your resources. Having been in both theaters of operation, Iraq and Afghanistan, I absolutely detest the words, “winning hearts and minds”. That is an extremely nebulous goal which can change in meaning from one day to the next in a counter-insurgent operation.
Furthermore, you must realize that in the culture that is Iraq, Afghanistan, and indeed the Islamic world, strength is respected, regarded, and yes, feared. Offerings of goodwill are often associated with weakness and truly disregarded.
Now, there are those who are saying “typical dumb military talk”, no, I am saying that before schools can be built, clinics established, and governing institutions advocated there must be security. My experiences have been that during the day we enter a village or area and offer assistance, funding, infrastructure support. However, at night the enemy enters and threatens leaders.
Therefore, here are the goals and objectives I offer as a strategy for Afghanistan:
Deny the enemy sanctuary; become enemy oriented and get out into the areas and reduce the bases of operation of the enemy. This also means separating him from resources he needs to survive. In Vietnam we did that with the “Strategic Hamlet” program and when we pulled back into large bases we surrendered the countryside to the Vietcong. In Iraq we went into the areas and proved to the tribal leaders, Sheiks that we would fight and stay.
Interdict the flow of supplies, manpower, materiel, and financial resources; no enemy can survive without resources. We must recognize that the opium production is a key part of the resourcing of this enemy. The local farmer does not care who buys the product, he just wants to survive. Separate the enemy from this resource, however destroying the crop only forces the farmer to the enemy.
Influence the populace; this relates to winning the Information War which we are losing. The enemy is getting their propaganda out far better than we are. In Afghanistan you have a huge illiteracy issue, over 70%. However, they listen to the radio like crazy. We don’t we establish radio stations on the secured bases and broadcast across the Country against the radical terrorist enemy. Get our message out so that we stop losing to their deliberate jihadist message.
Cordon off the Theaters of Operation; we have to understand that the surrounding countries have an effect. In 2006 the decision to pull the Pakistan Army out of the NW Federated Tribal Areas, North and South Waziristan, resulted in the creation of a huge enemy sanctuary. We need to create a security zone that extends beyond our operating areas; the same applies to Iraq as well.
In concert with these strategic/operational objectives we must do several other things:
Revise our Rules of Engagement (ROE); about two months ago a remote Army outpost became engaged in a horrific attack. The enemy staged from a local mosque, which is on a protected list. It took 21 minutes for close air support (CAS) to come on station because of the stringent ROE on precluding civilian casualties. The enemy knows the game, the rules have to change to support our troops in contact.
Institute a “Strike Operation” tactic; we must use our greatest asset, operational maneuverability to strike the enemy wherever he presents himself. We must regain the initiative, especially now as he seeks to “go to ground” for the winter. The tactical focus has to be on finding the enemy, fixing him in place denying his movement, engaging him with all available weapon systems, destroying him, and pursuing him. It has to be about maintaining pressure.
Breakdown the large operations bases; having been on Kandahar Airfield and Bagram I have seen the burgeoning “military cities” we have created. This results in an excessive need for resources and internal security that could be focused elsewhere.
Encourage our NATO allies; if it still remains in Kabul there was the renowned “book of caveats” which specified what NATO contributing forces could and could not do in support of the mission. I recall such heinous restrictions such as not being able to conduct night operations, not being able to leave the roads to fight the enemy, and not being allowed to participate in any combat operations, unless attacked.
No, I am not a nation-building advocate. The future of countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan has to be determined by them. I do support our setting the conditions, security, in order for them to truly choose the best course of action for their Nation.
Our leaders must articulate their strategic goals and match the right resources to their accomplishment. That has been severely missing over the past 16+ years. We must leverage every technological advantage we have in order to defeat this enemy.
Most importantly, we must have civilian leadership with a will, conviction, and a commitment to Victory.
Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (USA, Ret) is a 22 year active duty veteran. He holds a Bachelors degree from University of Tennessee and a Masters degree from Kansas State University both in Political Science and a Masters of Military Arts and Science from the US Army Command and General Staff Officers College in Political theory and Military Operations. LTC(R) West is the Republican party candidate for US Congressional district 22.
During a heated debate last week Sen. Barbara Boxer,
Chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works committee
refused to release a full economic analysis of the bill,
to which Inhofe bristled, "I can only conclude that
they don't want the pubic to know how much money this
thing is going to cost."
And cost it will...
Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) said of the coming legislation,
"This would be the largest tax increase in the history of
America."
Analysts believe the increased taxes and fees will cost the
average American household upwards of $1,600 to $3,000 or
more each and every year!
Making matters worse, scientists suggest Cap and Trade would
have no measureable benefit--except to the federal government.
Joe, stand with Grassfire right now against this
latest bureaucratic pickpocket scheme by clicking here and
signing our petition opposing the Cap and Trade legislation:
I'm calling on you, Joe, to help me rally and mobilize
100,000 grassroots citizens over the next ten days who refuse
to be ripped off by the federal government...
..who refuse to support any attempts to "fix" our environment
without measureable results!
Take a moment to add your name to our petition by clicking here:
After signing, forward this message to 25-30 friends, urging
them to take immediate action by signing our petition and
taking a stand against skyrocketing taxes and increased
government control, by clicking here:
Once again absent in this debate is the voice of the American
people who can't shoulder the added financial burden Cap and
Trade will spawn. Please sign our petition, and alert your
friends today.
Thanks for standing with Grassfire.
Steve Elliott
President, Grassfire.org
P.S: With your continued support, I know we can reach and rally
an additional 100,000 grassroots Americans to stand against
Cap and Trade over the next 10 days. But I'm counting on you,
Joe to reach out to your friends and family by
urging them to click here to sign our petition:
Warning Signs Ignored?
Rep. Peter Hoekstra joined Sean on the NewsMaker hotline to discuss the Fort Hood, Texas massacre. Hoekstra, the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, is demanding information from the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies to determine how much they knew about the shooter, Major Hasad. So far, Hoekstra said, the intelligence agencies have been less than helpful. “There are some indications from open source reporting that there were questions about Hasan and he may have been linked to either jihadist statements either he had made or he had had contact with ‘people of interest’ overseas,” said Hoekstra. The Congressman echoed Sean’s sentiment that Hasan was not stopped sooner because of political correctness. “Everybody wants to be hypersensitive. ...... They want to be sure before anyone makes a claim like that [that Hasan was an extremist]. I have been made aware of information from the intelligence community that suggests the possibility that serious issues exist with respect to the performance of US intelligence agencies," Hoekstra concluded.
A State Of Denial
Joining Sean by telephone from Orlando, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani talked about the shootings at Fort Hood. Sean explained to Giuliani that he believed the murders in Texas to be an act of terrorism. “I mentioned way back at the Republican convention that it’s possible that if there’s a Democratic administration that we’re going to end up being in a state of denial about terrorism,” Rudy explained. “I believe you can’t confront a problem unless you’re honest about it. When you don’t, I think you make a lot of critical mistakes. I think this should result in a very thorough investigation of precisely why these warning signs were not taken seriously.”
Today’s “Hot Topic” From The Hannity Forums:
Real Unemployment Hits 22% – Posted by JohnCraven
The following article analyzes the real unemployment numbers and it is clearly at Depression levels with little if any change for the better in sight { Article}
>> TV Tonight (Hannity FOXNews 9pm EST):
How can the GOP use health care reform to win big in 2010? Frank Luntz reveals the secret for
Dunn, a longtime Democratic media consultant, took over the job on an interim basis earlier this year when Ellen Moran abruptly left the post to take a job at the Commerce Department. Dunn will return to Squier Knapp Dunn, the consulting firm where she is a partner, but will remain as a consultant to the White House on the communications and strategic matters.
The move will be formally announced later today.
On Oct. 11, speaking on CNN, Dunn attacked Fox News as "a wing of the Republican Party." Her comments sparked a fresh battle between the White House and the network. In response to the criticism, Fox News executive Michael Clemente said in a statement that Obama's aides had decided to "declare war on a news organization."
A source inside the White House, who was not authorized to speak about strategy meetings, said at the time that Dunn went out front against Fox first and foremost because it was her job, but also because it potentially gave the administration the opportunity to distance itself from the flap with the Roger Ailes-led news channel once she leaves the communications job.
Pfeiffer began working for Obama in 2007 following Sen. Evan Bayh's (Ind.) decision not to pursue the presidency. He served a stint as the traveling press secretary for Obama's presidential bid but eventually took a slot overseeing the campaign's communications operation.
Prior to Obama, Pfeiffer worked for Sen. Tim Johnson's (S.D.) re-election race in 2002 and on then Sen. Tom Daschle's (S.D.) unsuccessful bid in 2004.
The passing of the baton from Dunn to Pfeiffer had long been expected within White House circles as she had made clear when she took the job that the "interim" in her title was meant to be taken literally.
Unlike when Moran left, the transition should be somewhat seamless as Dunn and Pfeiffer are longtime confidantes -- having worked closely in Daschle's political orbit for years.
The turnover in the communications director slot is the only change in Obama's senior staff with 10 months (or so) of his presidency having passed.
Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff and former Illinois Congressman, has made clear he would like to return to elected office at some point in the not-too-distant future and, if past presidencies are any guide there will be some further turnover in the senior staff over the next year or so.
Eyebrows were raised recently when David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, was asked in a live chat with the Washington Post about why he had not joined the Administration and responded: "I needed to take a couple years to re-balance and spend time with my family, knowing that perhaps in the future my life will need to get unbalanced again."
"ON THE FOUR CORNERS"
OAKLAND PARK BOULEVARD AND U.S. 1
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL
(in front of Target)
Take Back Your Country!!!
CLOSE THE BORDERS!!
NO TO AMNESTY!!
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS A CRIME!!
AMERICAN JOBS FOR LEGAL AMERICANS!!
Patriots:
The time has come to begin hard-hitting the ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION/Amnesty issue, coming SOON! This cataclysm is the SINGLE issue that will completely take apart our nation, never, ever to be reversed. AMNESTY will leave us with a one-party system, and uneducated people with little or no attributes to offer society.... people who simply are here to milk our system until nothing will remain for our own children and grandchildren. On the contrary. legal entry into America brings a deeper sense of responsibility to be educated about the country, and uphold the principals and values upon which America was founded.
Illegal immigration affects every aspect of American Family Life: Taxation; more high-cost government social programs and government dependency; abnormal magnification of crime, consequently overloading our already bloated prisons; extreme overcrowding of schools affecting an already weak/failing public-education system. Amnesty will be even more devastating than the passage of health care; cap & trade; government take-over of banks, the auto industry, and the insurance companies. IT CAN NEVER BE REVERSED!!!
On November 14 you are offered an opportunity to stand Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration. You will have the chance to have your voice heard and your signs read. Ask your government to implement 287G and E-Verify. You are called to come stand with us to stop the insanity and restore the rule-of-law in America.
This is a national event with designated locations from coast-to-coast. Currently in Florida there are two sites:
FORT LAUDERDALE
Corner of Oakland Park Blvd. and Federal Highway, NE Corner
Contact: Danita Kilcullen at TeaPartyFtL@gmail.com
SEBRING
213 Park Drive "Circle Park"
1:00 to 3:00
Contact: Mary Bengston
If you wish more information about Mary Bengston's Sebring event, please let me know.
= JOE WILSON... TRUTH CZAR!!!
= TAZAR THE CZARS...
...AND THE ADVI-CZARS!!!
= MMM MMM MMM... HE LOST HIS BID FOR CHICAGO...you have to say this with rhythm
..... BUT, HE SPENT 25 MINUTES WITH GENERAL McCRYSTAL!!!
= SHALL I BE HAPPY TO SEND MY GOOD SON TO AFGHANISTAN? VOTE
TOMORROW. SEND 40,000 NEW TROOPS? BRING OUR BOYS HOME?
ANYONE HAVE TIME TO MAKE A FEW NEW SIGNS.. APPLICABLE TO THE ABOVE??
T E A P A R T Y
SATURDAY, NOV. 14TH 12 NOON to 3:00PM
This is our 36th week! Longest running teaparty in America!!!
CORNER OF OAKLAND PARK BOULEVARD AND U.S. 1
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL (in front of Target)
Take Back Your Country!!!
NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!!!
NO TO AMNESTY!! STOP GIVING AMERICAN JOBS TO ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!
NO TO SOCIALIST OBAMACARE THAT IS MAKING ME SICK!!!
NO MORE TRILLION DOLLAR STIMULUS PLAN!!!
STOP BIG-GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER!!!
FIRED!!! SELF-DECLARED COMMUNIST GREEN CZAR VAN JONES. YES!!!
Next to Go: Dirtbags -- Kevin Jennings, Cass Sunstein Mark Lloyd, John Holdren et al
Please come stand with us as we protest the issues that matter to us.
CONSERVATIVES: TAKE BACK YOUR COUNTRY. Be a South Florida Sentinel, as "WE THE PEOPLE" become one voice… Our presence matters to the community...They expect to see us there. Come join us. We are now receiving over 600 honks per hour!!!
We need 500 people on each of the 4 corners!!! Give 2 hours each week for your country!!
PRAY!!! MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA
Danita Kilcullen: TEAPARTYFTL@gmail.com
"I tremble for the future of my country when I reflect that God is Just"
Thomas Jefferson
Obam is just one of only a few leaders who has attempted to level the playing field in favor of the middleclass and poor, but he too has been influenced by the Plutocracy currently our America.
I've just recorded a very special audio update with Ron De Jong,
Grassfire's Director of Communications that focuses on the
impact this legislation could have on you and your family.
Click here to listen to our exclusive audio report:
Some may call me crazy for suggesting that what happened on
Saturday could be anything but a horrific blow against the
American people and the very foundation of our nation...
but I see it differently.
Because of intense, mounting pressure from those Obama
mockingly refers to as "tea bag, anti-government people,"
pushed this vote four additional months, and at a
tremendous political toll...
Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Reid and others threatened, bartered,
bribed and intimidated all in hopes of garnering enough
support...
..they may have won this battle, but I believe, we will
win the war!
But I need your help.
Joe, I need you to take action with me to ultimately
defeat this bill that would forever change the course of
our nation. I need you to take a moment right now to add
your name to our petition by clicking here:
After signing, forward this message and short audio update,
to 25-30 friends and family encouraging them to listen and
then sign our petition opposing ObamaCare, and everything
that it represents by clicking here:
With your help, I believe we can reach 750,000 petition
signers in the next two weeks.
Keep in mind that during our last petition delivery to Capitol
Hill this past Thursday, we represented more than 630,000
signers, meaning we need slightly more than 100,000 signers
to reach three-quarters of a million citizens who oppose
ObamaCare!
I am encouraged by what took place on Saturday, and I'm actually
excited for the future of our nation. With your help in the days
and weeks ahead, we most certainly will win this battle.
Again, thank you in advance for your incredible support.
Laughing hysterically, Fox News media criticism show repeats fake HBO story that Fox apologized for starting
November 09, 2009 7:57 pm ET — 7 Comments
During the November 8 edition of Fox News Watch -- Fox News' media criticism and analysis program -- host Jon Scott repeated the fake story that President Obama watched an HBO documentary about himself on November 3 instead of election returns. However, Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett said on November 4 that the story -- which Fox News started -- was incorrect and apologized for what he said was his "mistake."
November 4: MacCallum starts fake story that Obama watched HBO documentary about himself instead of election returns
During the November 4 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Martha MacCallum started the fake story that Obama watched an HBO special about himself instead of the November 3 election returns:
MacCALLUM: Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, has been speaking with some reporters and he was asked, "So why didn't the president watch (the returns) last night?" And Robert Gibbs said, "Well, he was actually watching, you know, the HBO special about his year-long campaign and how it all went." So he was watching that last night. He says he was monitoring the returns as they came in, but [co-host] Bill [Hemmer], you know, we know that Michelle and the girls went to the Miley Cyrus concert last night. So he's all alone in that big house, right? Nothing to do but sit back and watch -- reminisce about the long campaign and watch HBO and the special."
The fake story was then picked up by Rush Limbaugh, who claimed that "[i]f a documentary could get anal poisoning, this one could."
Garrett: "I misheard Robert Gibbs. ... My mistake"
From the November 4 edition of Fox News' Studio B with Shepard Smith:
GARRETT: At 10 o'clock this morning, Martha MacCallum reported that the president last night didn't watch election returns but watched the HBO movie. That's because I misheard Robert Gibbs in the gaggle. The White House says he was probably watching the Bulls-Bucks basketball game, not the HBO movie. My mistake.
Fox News Watch on November 8: Obama "was watching the HBO documentary"
On Fox's media criticism show, Scott advanced Fox's fake story. On the November 8 edition of Fox News Watch -- billed by Fox News as "Media analysts cover the coverage of the week's biggest stories" -- Scott claimed that instead of watching election returns, Obama was "watching the HBO documentary. ... Now, maybe that's the one thing that could pull him away from -- from election returns." From Fox News Watch:
JAMES PINKERTON: Reporters are supposed to identify and put thing into an historical context. And the fact remains that since the Virginia governor's race has gone the opposite way of the White House for, like, 36 years in a row, that tells you pretty decisively that the voters in Virginia are reacting against who's ever in the White House. This time, it's Obama.
SCOTT: S.E., we are -- we heard from Robert Gibbs, the presidential spokesman, on Wednesday. He came out and said, "Oh, the president wasn't really paying attention to these returns. He was watching the HBO documentary" --
S.E. CUPP: I'm sorry. I can't even -- I can't even contain myself.
SCOTT: Now, maybe that's the one thing that could pull him away from -- from election returns.
CUPP: The spin job was laughable. I mean, really laughable. I get it. I mean, that's what you have to do in politics. They really had no choice.
As debate continues on the House floor, House Republicans are pulling out all the stops to scare the American public about the Affordable Health Care for America Act, including speeches today saying that Americans who don’t buy health insurance could face jail time. Here are the facts.
MYTH: “Reform Could Mean Jail Time for Americans Who Don’t Buy Insurance”
FACT: Right now, every insured American family will pay $1,017 a year in insurance premiums just to cover the medical expenses of the uninsured. That’s $42.7 billion this year - or $1,354 per second. Under the Affordable Health Care for America Act, Americans are responsible for purchasing health insurance coverage, and most employers will be responsible for offering coverage–individuals, employers, and the government are all responsible for contributing to the cost of coverage. This shared responsibility provision, for those who don’t already have insurance, requires Americans to either purchase affordable health insurance or pay a fee of 2.5% of their income so they are not driving up everyone else’s health costs.
Under the bill, the only people who would face the fee for not purchasing insurance are those who can truly afford to purchase such insurance.
For those who can afford insurance but for some reason do not purchase it, they simply pay the fee – a fee designed to cover their costs when they use the health care system. For a small number of people who might refuse to pay the fee, it is important to remember that, in the majority of cases, the IRS – which will enforce the insurance requirement – uses the CIVIL process to settle delinquent penalties and taxes.
It would only be in extremely rare circumstances that criminal prosecutions of any kind would be pursued:
In 2008, there were 156 million individual tax returns filed in the United States. Out of all of those 156 million returns, there were only 100 criminal prosecutions for willful failure to pay taxes – and only for the most egregious examples of those who willfully defraud the system.
Of course, true access to quality health care cannot happen if coverage is unaffordable. The bill will ensure accessible health coverage for all Americans by providing affordability credits and expanding Medicaid for those below 150 percent of poverty. The bill is designed to ensure that the shared responsibility requirement is never imposed on those who cannot afford to purchase health insurance. Some of the key affordability provisions:
Under our bill, there are generous affordability credits to help people purchase health insurance on the Health Insurance Exchange – with the credits on a sliding scale according to someone’s income.
There is a hardship exemption for those who cannot afford insurance even with affordability credits.
Excerpt (the last time this PAC was involved in a Congressional election):
In 2009, Our Country Deserves Better endorsed Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate in a special election for Congress in New York's 20th district. Tedisco's opponent is Democratic candidate Scott Murphy. The special election was called to replace Kirsten Gillibrand, who was appointed to fill the Senate seat left open when Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. The PAC promised "a large cash infusion" of "'hundreds of thousands' of dollars to Tedisco's cause by the March 31 special election." [5] The associated MAF Freedom PAC also endorsed Tedisco, calling him "a solid conservative" whose election would "chip away at [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi's anti-military majority" and be the "first step in slowing down the Obama march to abandon the war on terror." [6]
According to CQ Politics, as of two weeks before the election, OCDB's spending was significantly less than "hundreds of thousands" of dollars. "The conservative Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which ran ads against Obama during the 2008 presidential election, has made a small ad buy of $17,000 attacking Murphy," it reported. "A new independent poll on the 20th District contest shows Democratic nominee Scott Murphy, a newcomer candidate, within striking distance of Republican Jim Tedisco, a state Assembly leader." [7]
The nonpartisan campaign watchdog group FactCheck.org criticized OCDB's ads against Murphy. Its analysis of an OCDB ad claiming Murphy is against the U.S. military stated:
Whether he "smeared" the military then is a judgment call we won't address. But we will say that a strongly worded editorial penned 20 years in college is flimsy evidence for a "shameful record of attacking our military." We called Our Country Deserves Better PAC to ask whether the group had any other support for its claim; no one has returned our calls.
FactCheck deemed "misleading" another OCDB ad, which claimed "Murphy's company failed to pay taxes after three liens were placed against it." [8]
With a track record like this, do they think they're really scaring anyone?
Some information about Joe Wierzbicki, a long time PR professional:
In 2005, RM+R helped promote Move America Forward's recent "Truth Tour" of Iraq by right-wing radio hosts there and preparing a campaign for the Kurdish Regional Government. Wierzbicki told journalist Bill Berkowitz that his firm's Kurdish campaign "will thank the American people for supporting the war in Iraq, and encourage Americans to visit and invest in the Kurdish region." Wierzbicki said RM+R is "not advocating an independent Kurdistan," but "the Kurds would like the rest of the country to look at the Kurdish region and see it as a model" for Iraq. The Kurdish campaign will likely be a short-term effort, including television and print ads, that will start in late summer or early fall. "It's important to recognize that the Kurds are not hostile to the West," Wierzbicki added. [3]
Kind of dropped the ball on that one.
Oops, I was wrong. These guys were also involved in the NY-23 race:
Our Country Deserves Better has a history of lying and distorting the truth. I said before and I'll say it again. The tea baggers are getting so desperate they'll prositute themseleves to anybody now.
As Sean Hannity is fond of saying: "Let not your heart be troubled." We can still beat the Obama program in the Senate! Obama needed the momentum of House passage to help him in the Senate where the real challenge lies.
There, we have several Senators who might well vote no: Lieberman (CT), Bayh (Ind), Hagan (NC), Landrieu (LA), Pryor and Lincoln (Ark), Nelson (Neb), Johnson (SD), Dorgan and Conrad (ND), Tester (Montana), Engler (Col), and Feinstein (Cal). And Reid will need all of these Senators to back the bill to get the 60 votes to pass it (assuming we hold Collins and Snowe from Maine).
And, if Reid tries to use reconciliation to pass the bill with just 50 votes, he will not only get negative votes from most of the above but likely from Byrd (W VA) and a bunch of others. Some will object to the procedural issue. Others will worry that if they are ever in the minority, they will need the filibuster to stay relevant and do not want to set the precedent of taking away the weapon.
The key is to keep fighting. Please give us funds to run ads in these swing states to go after voters on this key issue. We have raised $2.7 million already but need at least $2 million more to move the key votes.
Click here to donate.
And read the column below to understand the full stakes:
JAIL FOR NO INSURANCE UNDER PELOSI BILL
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the House version of the health care bill specifies that those who don't buy health insurance and do not pay the fine of about 2.5% of their income for failing to do so can face a penalty of up to five years in prison!
The bill describes the penalties as follows:
* Section 7203 - misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
* Section 7201 - felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years." [page 3]
That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible.
And how much will the stay-out-of-jail insurance cost? The Joint Committee noted that "according to a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the lowest-cost family non-group plan under HR 3862 (the Pelosi bill) would cost $15,000 by 2016."
Obama's bill only provides subsidies to help pay this enormous sum after families making about $45,000 have paid 8% of their income for insurance and after those earning a household income of about $65,000 have kicked in 12%.
The Joint Committee on Taxation noted that while the Senate Finance Committee version of the bill did not include criminal penalties, "The House Democrats' bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail."
Remember that simply buying catastrophic insurance, which may be all the young uninsured family needs, does not constitute having adequate insurance under the Obama bill. It has to be total, all inclusive insurance for one to avoid the penalties in the legislation. That is because Obama wants to use these premiums from the currently uninsured to subsidize his program.
So Ms. Pelosi is requiring Americans to pay these steep premiums, or a fine of 2.5% of their income for not doing so, or, potentially, go to prison!
Anyone who is familiar with the U.S. prison system can attest to the large number of people incarcerated for similar white collar offenses. That the House bill would treat failure to carry health insurance or pay the fine as tax evasion or willful nonpayment is amazing!
And where is the constitutional basis for requiring everyone to buy insurance? It is OK for a state to make drivers pay for automobile insurance. Driving is not a right, it is a privilege, and the state may regulate it by demanding insurance. Banks can require homeowners to buy insurance as a condition of their lending. But how does the federal government get the right to require a family to buy health insurance or face a civil penalty and, failing that, to face either a criminal fine or jail?
The tough penalties in the House bill are designed to keep insurance companies from opposing the bill. It was the relaxation of these penalties in the Senate Finance Committee version of the legislation that led the companies to reverse field and come out in opposition to the legislation. The insurance companies want to see their coffers swell when tens of millions of new customers are required to buy insurance. The more draconian the penalties for failing to pay them large sums of money to pad their bottom lines, the better.
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Rickey Medlocke
Rickey Medlocke, the lead guitarist for Lynard Skynyrd, joined Sean on the NewsMaker hotline to talk about the 2010 Freedom Concert and to announce the 2010 Freedom Concert Anthem, That Ain’t My America. “I can’t thank you enough for joining us next year,” Sean said, “and this song is about how some are trying to change America at its core.” “We’re glad to be a part of it, “responded Rickey, “we’re glad for all the concert stands for.” For a quick listen to the new Hannity Freedom Concert Anthem, click here. Visit freedomconcerts.com to purchase the new Christmas Packages.
Carrie Prejean: Still Standing
Former Beauty Queen, Carrie Prejean, joined Sean on the show to discuss her latest book, “Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks.” Her book addressed many of the controversies that threw her into the spotlight but, what it highlights more is how determined Ms. Prejean is to leading the new conservative movement that’s gaining ground by the day. Sean started the show by pressing Ms. Prejean on the existence of a controversial sex tape. Carrie was quick to honestly answer that the tape did exist and say, “This is the most humiliating thing I’ve had to deal with,” said Prejean, “and the important thing to do is take responsibility for it and face the challenge.” What a refreshing approach, especially when most public figures put spin on top of spin in an effort to grab the public spotlight. It’s amazing how the truth can really be the best “s pin.” To learn more about Carrie Prejean’s book, click here.
Today’s “Hot Topic” From The Hannity Forums:
Obama To Bid ON Rebuilding Berlin Wall? – Posted by Redfish64
Reagan," tear down this wall". Obama is such a big fan of communism and socialism, I think if he weren't attacked for it, he would offer to rebuild the wall. As we sit here waiting for Obama to make a decision, pending since August, to send or not send troops to Afghanistan, we have to at the very least be concerned about his thought process.
{ More}
>> TV Tonight (Hannity FOXNews 9pm EST):
From getting dumped to dealing with Trump, Carrie Prejean tells all in an exclusive interview!
According to Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, who supports the health care bill, the president asked (the Democrats in their meeting), “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care? All it will do is confuse and dispirit” Democratic voters “and it will encourage the extremists.”
So Mr. Obama called us extremists? Not much of a surprise.
But what IS important is the fact that Barack Obama is so unnerved by this great tea party movement. Folks, our efforts have put Obama-Pelosi-Reid on the defensive and no less than Barack Obama is panicked about our effectiveness!
Well let him get panicked because I just concluded a meeting with our top staff at the Our Country Deserves Better Committee and we are putting the plans into place to defeat as many of the 220 politicians who just voted for the socialistic government-run healthcare plan.
OUR FELLOW AMERICANS!
This is NOT a sales solicitation! You will not be asked to buy anything, sell anything, fill out a survey, or support a candidate!
What we ask you to DO - will cost you nothing - but the cost of DOING nothing - will cost AMERICA EVERYTHING!
IF YOU'RE AN AMERICAN CITIZEN - THIS MATTER CONCERNS YOU! Whether you are -Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, or otherwise - regardless of your political party, race, color, age, or gender!
THIS IS a GRASS ROOTS MOVEMENT- a Special Email Operation to inform all Americans of a DEVASTATING NATIONAL CALAMITY coming to America! This is not a hoax, a joke, or a scam. You will not hear a mainstream News Report about this. The reasons will become obvious to you, as you learn more about this present evil!
Please Watch This 4 Minute Music Video!
HERE'S WHAT WE ASK YOU TO DO!
1. WATCH MUSIC VIDEO (4 min.) "Take Our Freedom Back!
Click here to watch=> http://bandofpatriots.us
4. ACT ON NOV 22nd! DEMAND CONGRESS TO PASS
A) HOUSE BILL HR-1207: FEDERAL RESERVE TRANSPARENCY ACT
B) SENATE BILL S-604: FEDERAL RESERVE SUNSHINE ACT
HOW TO ACT
MAIL a hand written letter. EMAIL your Senate and House Representatives.
CALL their offices! Get their names & contact info online. It's easy! PARTICIPATE in an END THE FED RALLY in your area!
It's from the Tea Party Express rally in Branden, Mississippi last night. THOUSANDS of people packed the venue - it was an overflow crowd that packed the bleachers above spilled out onto the performing grounds of the Rankin County Multi-Purpose Arena.
Watch this video - and forward it along to every patriot you know who needs to see that our movement is growing and we are going to take our country back!
I am personally committed to identifying 3000 conservatives in the month of November that agree with me. If you do I urge you to make a donation of $25 or more towards our efforts to vote these Democrats out of office.
With your finanacial support:
We will fund their opponents.
We will educate the voters in their districts about their head turning votes.
And we will let loose an army of volunteers trained to do one thing: defeat them.
If you are as irate as I am, I urge you to make an immediate contribution today using this link:
Once again, passage of an Amnesty bill will destroy our two-party system and turn our country into a third-world nation almost overnight. We must stand and fight.
Over the next two weeks I will be emailing illegal immigration and anti-amnesty information... Some of it you may have seen before, so just review it; some will be new to you. Begin now to collect facts from what I send, or from your own research, as to what an event of this magnitude will mean to our communities, State, and Country. Design your signs from these facts. For the 14th, all signs should be about illegal immigration and amnesty... just for this one occassion. Please use judgement when composing your signs.
We have invited some speakers for this day. One has confirmed. More soon.
Halloween Saturday was good fun... Ed B.... Just a wonderful constume. Thank you. Norm: Great, great BHO mask. You all are fabulous patriots. Love the regular comers.
In 1992, Brown headed up the Presidential Victory Committee, which backed the candidacy of George H.W. Bush. In March of that year the Bush campaign sought to halt the committees efforts to raise money. Bobby Burchfield, acting as Bush campaign counsel, wrote to Brown, "Your group has neither asked for nor received permission to solicit funds using the name of George Bush. The president strongly disapporoves of this misleading use of his name and reputation."[5]
CBS Evening News reported that Floyd Brown harassed the family of Susan Coleman, a former law student of Bush's opponent Bill Clinton. Coleman had committed suicide, and Brown was attempting to investigate a rumor that she had had an affair with Clinton. David Bossie reportedly stalked the family of a suicide victim while working for Brown. In April, 1992, 30 news organizations received "an anonymous and untraceable letter" by fax "claiming Clinton had had an affair with a former law student who committed suicide 15 years ago." Floyd Brown attempted to investigate any connection between Clinton and the 1977 suicide of this, "emotionally distraught young woman, seven-months pregnant," Susan Coleman.[11]
In an audiotaped phone conversation with Coleman's sister, the following exchange took place:
Brown: Was she depressed? See, you won't even answer if she was depressed.
Coleman's Sister: Because I—
Brown: Was she suicidal?
Coleman's Sister: Just leave my family alone.
Brown: You're making it so difficult for me to leave your family out of it.[12]
The Bush-Quayle campaign eventually filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Brown, seeking to distance itself from his tactics,[13][14] and calling Brown and his associates "the lowest forms of life"[15].
Recdently, FLoyd Brown has aligned himself WND. WND is an extreme right wing publication and has been shown to be lying, distorting and smearing over and over. WND is also birther central and the primary cheerleader of Orly Taitz. Most recently WND has come under fire for falsely claiming thet Maj Hasan, the Ft Hood shooter, advised the Obama Administration during it's transistion.
Using WND as his platform, Floyd Brown launched an "impeach" Obama initiative. Although never actually detailing what Obama did that deserves impeachment (you know, one of those pesky little legal details), Brown instead just offers up the usual right wing diatribe against the President.
Here is a link to an article about the impeachment effort:
"County commissioners are considering prospecting for oil and gas under the swampy, sprawling 37-square-mile site that is now mostly within the borders of the Big Cypress National Wildlife Preserve."
Yesterday I told you we were working on something big. We put out a call for help, and almost immediately we were overwhelmed with volunteers.
Now we're ready to begin phase one of our path to victory for 2010.
I'm going to explain the details of this phase here shortly, but first I want to ask you to do something. I need you to strongly consider taking our new Grassroots Pledge.
And don't just take the pledge yourself. Invite anyone and everyone you know to do the same.
The Missing Piece
Last night, we held a conference call and came to the conclusion that our movement needs a surge towards a goal to end incumbent power in Congress.
Our movement has groups working on issue advocacy, grassroots organizing and general tea party activism, but we're missing a campaign component. We're missing the piece that allows us to unify around new candidates and knock out powerful thugs in Congress.
With this in mind, I'll be joining a team of tea party activists to launch Liberty First PAC this week.
Liberty First PAC
Our mission is simple. We refuse to help any incumbents, and we pledge to work towards defeating any incumbent who voted to support Nancy Pelosi's dangerous healthcare bill.
Our goal is to:
a) Identify Patriot Candidates and help them run successful campaigns against power hungry politicians
b) Build a national educational media campaign to help the general electorate understand what our government is attempting to do to us
Grassroots Pledge
We need tens of thousands of American Patriots to help us build this, and this begins with you. Please take the pledge now. After you've done so, invite everyone you know to do the same.
Contribute
We have an urgent immediate need to raise $5,000 to build our PAC website and get all of our paperwork filed. If you can give us a hand, please click here.
Stay tuned and watch your inbox for the next few phases of our plan. We hope to launch the second phase, "Operation Information Warfare" the first week of December.
Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and everyone else who voted for this bill should be ashamed. Instead they are triumphant.
James Simpson writing in the American Thinker captured the cost we will all pay for their arrogance when he wrote Saturday:
“The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the 10 year (2010-2019) cost of the House Democrats' bill at $1.055 trillion. As usual, there is so much budget gimmickry in these estimates as to make them virtually meaningless.
The Democrats are dishonest on so many levels about this healthcare "reform" it is almost impossible to untangle all their lies. Let's start by clarifying some basic truths.
First, who pays for healthcare right now? That's right, the taxpayers who foot the bill not only for their own healthcare, but for illegal immigrants, the poor and seniors as well. (Some seniors continue to pay a premium for Medicare but it still doesn't cover all the costs).
Who is feeling the pain of the rapid annual growth in healthcare costs that the Democrats claim so desperately to want to fix? Right, these same taxpayers.
Some will argue that employers pick up most of the tab. That is true when employers offer healthcare policies to their employees, but it is an illusion. Businesses must make a profit to remain alive, so every cost they pick up is passed on to the consumer in higher prices. So, in reality, we pay.”
It is disheartening to see so many have been hoodwinked by the propaganda machine supporting government controlled healthcare. Supporters of this scheme are jubilant. Obama himself writing to his loyal army of activists said: “So this is a night to celebrate -- but not to rest. Those who voted for reform deserve our thanks, and the next phase of this fight has already begun.”
And Obama was right about a fight, within minutes of the vote his political machine called "Organizing for America" was sending millions of deceptive emails lambasting Republicans as tools of greedy insurance firms. According to ABC News the emails were sent only into Republican Members districts and read like this: "Unfortunately, your representative," which then names the Member of Congress, "caved to intense pressure from insurance industry lobbyists and voted against health reform."
The emails are deceptive ABC reports because, “A Democratic official says the email is not being sent to constituents of the 39 Democratic Members of Congress who voted against the measure Saturday night.” Obama’s political hacks only attack Republicans. No surprise there.
One group that is truly joyful is the homosexual/transgender lobby. They get everything from Obama and friends that they wanted in the Obamacare bill. They now have special early access to Medicaid for HIV positive people. You only get the early Medicaid benefit if you have HIV not if you have cancer, heart disease, diabetes or a raft of other diseases that attack the less sexually promiscuous.
The only good news from the weekend was the announcement that the House bill is DOA in the US Senate. NEWSMAX reported:
“The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.
Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people."
The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.
If a government plan is part of the deal, "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.
"The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.
Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.”
As you can see, we have our work cut out for us as we continue to battle the Obama socialist agenda as we gear up for the 2010 elections and the campaign for impeachment.
I think the funniest part is her defense of Jeff Gannon. Complete and total denial of reality.
In fact, just go here (http://labs.daylife.com/journalist/sher_zieve?js=1) it has a pretty good list of articles written by Sher Zieve. Most, if not all of her various "points" and "facts" have already been debunked over and over. Sher Zieve has this obssession with Marxism and apparently anyone that doesn't fit her political views gets labeled as one. What you'll notice is that she uses the same tactics as everybody else on the extreme far right: using half truths, distortions, out right lies, claiming bias and conspiracy against polls that don't prove favorable to them, wild, unfounded conspiracy theories, etc.
The first clues as to her bias is that virtually the only people that will publish her are far right wing websites and publications. Accodring to her bio blurb: "Her columns have, also, appeared in The Oregon Herald, Boston Star, Massachusetts Sun, Sacramento Sun and on multiple University websites"
As a side note, although I live in Florida now, I grew up near Boston, Ma. I've NEVER heard of any publication called "Boston Star" or "Massachusetts Sun". But, I thought maybe these were relatively new publications, so I went looking for them. guess what I found out? These "publications" are owned by Midwest Radio Network Pty Ltd from Australia. They own websites with names like "vancouver Star", "Brazil Sun", "Nigeria Sun", "Middle East Star", (getting the pattern here?) "Texas Guardian", "Wisconsin Star", etc, etc. And, EVERY ONE of these websites (alright, I didn't check EVERY single one, but the dozen or so I did) has the same headlines, same format, same stories, hell even the same font. Everything about them is the same except for the names of the websites.
So, you may ask, who is Midwest Radio Network Pty Ltd" According to Wikipedia:
Midwest Radio Network Ltd
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[edit] Purveyors of Pretend News Sites
Not going to put too much effort into this article because these guys are domain-squatters or at least just "republishers" of other site's content, posing as a legitimate news site. Their bogus sites include North Korea Times and hundreds of others.
[edit] Address
Midwest Radio Network Ltd
Suite 202, Level 2
111 Harrington Street
Sydney NSW
Australia 2000
And about North Korea Times:
North Korea Times is an online fake newspaper with a special focus on pretending to cover North Korean events in order to sell ads. The site is not based in North Korea; according to domain name registration records, it is owned by Midwest Radio Network Ltd. of Sydney, Australia. The newspaper's mission statement reads, "Our objective is to provide the most comprehensive North Korean news available, from our resources, contracted wire services and an inventory of some thousands of sources comprising newspapers, cable and TV networks, radio stations, public broadcasters, NGOs and others, North Korean news is a priority." Despite frequent mentions of "we" and "our," the paper does not name any of its journalists or editors. The paper's stories contain no original content and are all republished articles from other media organizations.
As internet access in North Korea is illegal, it is unlikely that North Korean citizens have access to the Web site.
You may ask yourself, but who would willingly align themselves with someone who obviously has only fake news outlets to post her rants? Well it turns out that Roger & Karen Bryant post on all sort of extreme right wing websites such as resistnet.com, the912coalition.ning.com, www.meetup.com/WeSurroundThemGathering/ and other tea party affiliated websites.
Take it for what you will, but I thought you'd like to know exactly who it is that posts this stuff.
With Saturday night’s passage of the US House of Representatives’ ObamaCare package (220-215), America was moved closer to the US Marxist (formerly Democrat) Party’s totalitarian control over the American people and 1/6 of their economy.
It has also been suggested that if this behemoth and Orwellian bill is passed, by both houses of Congress, government may soon be in control of 4 out of every 5 dollars Americans are still allowed to “earn.” Marxist Congressional leaders (Pelosi, Franks, Hoyer, Waxman, Reid, Dodd come immediately to mind) and of course Dictator-in-Chief Obama’s power grab and transfer from the American people to themselves (and their insatiable greed-lust) are all that is left of a Congress that was once concerned with saving both the country and We-the-People.
The Marxists now holding power and sway over the USA and its people see themselves as celebrities that no longer need the approval of the US electorate for anything they decide to do. The wishes and desires of the ruling-elite are paramount.
Long ago career Congressional members discarded the notion that they are beholden to doing the people’s business or even listening to them. We-the-People are expected to work for them, in order to keep them in the lifestyles to which they have become accustomed. Besides, when Marxists and any other type of totalitarian regime is in power votes are no longer necessary. The rulers will take care to instill the necessary intimidation, force and vote-counters to ensure their staying in power and seizing control over every aspect of the lives of their (former) constituents.
Remember, ObamaCare is NOT about healthcare but, it is about control…total control. With this greatest theft of power and its perks in US history, the minority will now have the power to determine the future of the majority. That’s your future and mine. And in order to pay for it, not only will taxes be raised on everyone but, Medicare WILL be gutted.
Note: Gutting of Medicare=termination of large numbers of Seniors. Simple solution for reducing the population. If the ObamaCare measure passes the Senate, the USA will have been successfully and finally destroyed from within. If also passed, Obama’s Cap and Tax will place the final nail in America’s coffin.
On 15 April 2009, TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties were held nationwide. Congress, Obama and Obama’s state-run media ignored or marginalized the efforts of hundreds of thousands of us. On 12 September approximately 1.7 millions of We-the-People arrived in Washington D.C. to tell Congress “No ObamaCare and No Cap and Tax!” The Marxist Congress ignored us, Obama left town and his state-run media—again—marginalized us. Then, on 5 November thousands of We-the-People came to D.C., walked the halls of OUR capitol and told our representatives to vote NO on ObamaCare. What happened? Most of the representatives that WE elected closed their doors to us. And House leader Nancy Pelosi (Marxist from California), who remained in hiding on that day, had right to life protesters who wanted to speak with her arrested.
So, here are a few facts. Once “universal healthcare” enters a society, said society is—forevermore—ruled from the Left; even if some conservatives are finally elected. The tentacles of this giant entitlement program will spread wide and deep and—if one can still follow history—will not be able to be removed. Despite all of our best efforts, the Marxist rulers (no longer those who actually govern) in Washington D.C. have refused and continue to refuse to listen to us. If we have any opposing opinion, they either turn a deaf ear and blind eye to us or have us arrested for daring to do so. In their minds—we are already peasants.
Obama continues to say that if we decide to keep private insurance, nothing will change. He lies and continues to do so in the very best fashion of all totalitarian leaders. ObamaCare not only destroys American healthcare but, is designed to also destroy small business—once the lifeblood of the USA economy. Have you ever watched and listed to Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez or tapes of Hitler or Mussolini? They were also extremely charismatic as they delivered their deceptions.
1.) We The People Foundation placed a full-page advertisement in the December 1 and 3, 2008 Chicago Tribune newspaper in the form of an open letter addressed to Barack Obama's presidential transition office in Chicago, in which the Foundation disputes Obama's status as a "natural born citizen" of the United States. The letter asserts that Obama cannot assume the office of President, and that the state electors cannot vote for his candidacy, unless Obama provides "documentary evidence before December 15, that conclusively establishes his eligibility". The letter lists specific documents that, in the opinion of the letter's author, Robert L. Schulz, are missing or have not been made available. The letter states that the attempts to obtain the demanded evidence were unsuccessful "in a number of recent lawsuits".[28] The group had previously said: "We make no claim regarding Mr. Obama, other than he has refused to provide proof of his eligibility to hold the office of the President of the United States, as he is required to do by the Constitution."[29] On December 3, the same day as the second ad ran, the Tribune also ran a response examining the allegations the Foundation made.[30]
When Justice Sotomayor was confirmed, ALIPAC not only accused her of being a racist but also claimed that "Those of you in areas of dense illegal immigration might have a rowdy night on your hands." Never mind the fact that she was born in the Bronx and Puerto Ricans are American Citizens.
All this is interesting because here we have a Tea Party activist now in blatant support of ALIPAC. However, back in April, the National Tax Day Tea Party (the precursor to the current tea partiers) was adamant about separating themselves from the nativist agenda of ALIPAC. Before the April event, APLIPAC sent out the following email"
"We are notifying our supporters of the plan for pro immigration enforcement groups to lend our support to the Tax Day Tea Party efforts nationally on April 15, 2009."
But, the spokesperson of the Tax Day Tea Party did not know about this email:
Julia Nelson, spokesperson for the Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party, she explained that her organization was not aware of ALIPAC’s announcement. She also explained that although her group could not deny ALIPAC supporters the right to attend their event, ALIPAC’s message against undocumented immigrants is not welcome and will not be a part of the Tax Day Tea Party message.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.
Speaking from the Rose Garden about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and “take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people.”
The problem is that the Senate won’t run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.
If a government plan is part of the deal, “as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome GOP filibusters.
“The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said dismissively.
Democrats did not line up to challenge him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has yet to schedule floor debate and hinted last week that senators may not be able to finish health care this year.
Nonetheless, the House vote provided an important lesson in how to succeed with less-than-perfect party unity, and one that Senate Democrats may be able to adapt. House Democrats overcame their own divisions and broke an impasse that threatened the bill after liberals grudgingly accepted tougher restrictions on abortion funding, as abortion opponents demanded.
In Senate, the stumbling block is the idea of the government competing with private insurers. Liberals may have to swallow hard and accept a deal without a public plan in order to keep the legislation alive. As in the House, the compromise appears to be to the right of the political spectrum.
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who voted for a version of the Senate bill in committee, has given the Democrats a possible way out. She’s proposing to allow a government plan as a last resort, if after a few years premiums keep escalating and local health insurance markets remain in the grip of a few big companies. This is the “trigger” option.
That approach appeals to moderates such as Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. “If the private market fails to reform, there would be a fallback position,” Landrieu said last week. “It should be triggered by choice and affordability, not by political whim.”
Lieberman said he opposes the public plan because it could become a huge and costly entitlement program. “I believe the debt can break America and send us into a recession that’s worse than the one we’re fighting our way out of today,” he said.
For now, Reid is trying to find the votes for a different approach: a government plan that states could opt out of.
The Senate is not likely to jump ahead this week on health care. Reid will keep meeting with senators to see if he can work out a political formula that will give him not only the 60 votes needed to begin debate, but the 60 needed to shut off discussion and bring the bill to a final vote.
Toward the end of the week, the Congressional Budget Office may report back with a costs and coverage estimate on Reid’s bill, which he assembled from legislation passed by the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Finance Committee version does not include a government plan.
Reid has pledged to Obama that he will get the bill done by the end of the year and remains committed to doing that, according to a Senate leadership aide.
Both the House and Senate bills gradually would extend coverage to nearly all Americans by providing government subsidies to help pay premiums. The measures would bar insurers’ practices such as charging more to those in poor health or denying them coverage altogether.
All Americans would be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government plan or by purchasing it on their own.
To keep down costs, the government subsidies and consumer protections don’t take effect until 2013. During the three-year transition, both bills would provide $5 billion in federal dollars to help get coverage for people with medical problems who are turned down by private insurers.
Both House and Senate would expand significantly the federal-state Medicaid health program for low-income people.
The majority of people with employer-provided health insurance would not see changes. The main beneficiaries would be some 30 million people who have no coverage at work or have to buy it on their own. The legislation would create a federally regulated marketplace where they could shop for coverage.
The are several major differences between the bills.
_The House would require employers to provide coverage; the Senate does not.
_The House would pay for the coverage expansion by raising taxes on upper-income earners; the Senate uses a variety of taxes and fees, including a levy on high-cost insurance plans.
_The House plan costs about $1.2 trillion over 10 years; the Senate version is under $900 billion.
By defusing the abortion issue—at least for now—the House may have helped the long-term prospects for the bill. Catholic bishops also eager to expand society’s safety net may yet endorse the final legislation.
Lieberman appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” while Graham was CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
WASHINGTON (AP) - The alleged Fort Hood shooter apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there.
Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded 31 at the Texas military base, held his mother’s funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper.
At the time, Anwar Aulaqi was an imam, or spiritual leader, at the Washington-area mosque. Aulaqi told the FBI in 2001 that, before he moved to Virginia in early 2001, he met with 9/11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi several times in San Diego. Al-Hazmi was at the time living with Khalid al-Mihdhar, another hijacker. Al-Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Virginia in early April 2001.
In his FBI interview, Aulaqi denied ever meeting with al-Hazmi and Hanjour while in Virginia.
Aulaqi, a native-born U.S. citizen, left the United States in 2002, eventually traveling to Yemen. He was investigated by the FBI in 1999 and 2000 after it was learned that he may have been contacted by a possible procurement agent for Osama bin Laden. During this investigation, the FBI learned that Aulaqi knew people involved in raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian group on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list.
Shaker el Sayed, the current imam at Dar Al Hijrah, declined to comment when reached Sunday by The Associated Press.
Faizul Khan, former imam of the Muslim Community Center in nearby Silver Spring, Md., where Hasan also worshipped, said he was not aware that Hasan had attended services at Dar al Hijrah but said it would not be unusual for Hasan to attend more than one mosque concurrently.
Khan said he did not recall Hasan mentioning having been taught or preached to by Aulaqi.
The London Telegraph first reported the potential link between Hasan and the mosque.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Sunday it’s important for the country not to get caught up in speculation about Hasan’s Muslim faith, and he has instructed his commanders to be on the lookout for anti-Muslim reaction to the killings at the Texas post.
He says focusing on the Islamic roots of the suspected shooter could “heighten the backlash” against all Muslims in the military.
Casey says diversity in the military “gives us strength.”
Casey declined to answer questions about the investigation into the shooting, but said evidence to this point shows that Hasan acted alone. He toured Fort Hood on Friday with Army Secretary John McHugh.
Casey appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and CNN’s “State of the Union.”
1. Stupak Amendment passes, much to the joy of Republicans (in fact because so many Republicans voted for it) and the continuing debasement and dumbing down of women continue. And no, before all you conservatives get into a huff about another "feminazi" getting all riled up, I'm a male who thinks that women are completely able to make their own choices.
During his speech to a Joint Session of Congress in September the President reiterated many of his other promises that lie broken in the wake of the House bill. He vowed if you like your current plan you will not have to change it. In truth, the House plan cuts Medicare Advantage almost in half and gives incentives for employers to drop their employees from current plans. The President also gave his word that his plan would not raise the deficit "by one dime." However the independent Congressional Budget Service points out that the current House health care bill would raise the deficit by $239 billion over the next nine years.
His most egregious claim was "under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions." The current House health care bill can be summed up in three words: "Planned Parenthood Bailout." There are currently close to 900 abortion facilities in the United States today, many of them owned or affiliated with Planned Parenthood. The economic downturn has been affecting the abortion industry as well, and many abortuaries across the nation are being forced to close. This has been highlighted over the last couple of days by Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood official who has exposed Planned Parenthood's drift towards increasing the number of abortions they do in order to increase their profit. Under the current House health care bill Planned Parenthood will need to order bank trucks to haul in the government funds they will reap as taxpayer funds are routed to pay for abortions. As the unemployment figure reached 10.2 percent today, is a bailout of the abortion industry the message President Obama really wants to send? For more on this issue, watch my recent Perkins on Point video.
Boxer's Rebellion
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has a reputation on Capitol Hill for being rather, well, nasty and disrespectful. That was clearly on display yesterday as she bucked Senate procedure and forced a vote in her Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the cap and tax legislation that would likely raise taxes by over $3.6 trillion while doing little to help the environment. Senator Boxer held the vote without any Republican senators present, which is unprecedented in the history of the committee.
This is typical of the global warming debate -- ignore the science and silence anyone who would disagree with you. While this may have given the California senator a short lived victory it made even her supporters across the aisle balk at giving her bill any support to reach the Senate floor. What we need from our Members of Congress is a little more cool headedness and a lot less hot air.
There are over 2,000 pages to wade through before we know exactly what else is in Speaker Pelosi's government-run health care bill. Unfortunately, the speaker broke her promise to make the final bill public 72 hours prior to a vote. What is certain is the bill that passed last night:
Creates new entitlement programs based on the nearly bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid programs;
Forces individuals to pay for government-regulated insurance or face criminal sanctions (effectively a $15,000 mandate based on Congressional Budget Office projections);
Outlaws private health insurance plans, rendering false the claim that you can keep the insurance plan you have now;
Pays for reform by taxing small businesses and cutting $500 billion from Medicare;
Places a bureaucrat in between you and your doctor to make sure your care can be rationed.
Doctors will become scarcer as their civil rights are diminished, Americans will have less choice and lower quality care under a government-run insurance plan and millions of middle-class citizens will drown in unbearable taxes.
Click here to find out how your Representative voted.
Last night's vote was a victory for Speaker Pelosi and the Administration. But the battle is far from over. Call your Congressman now.
If you Representative voted:
Against the bill -- thank them for putting patients first;
For the bill - tell them they cast the wrong vote. Then email your friends and ask them to call their Congressmen. Send them this link (http://www.rallycongress.com/patients-first) to make it easy.
Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice focuses on constitutional law and is dedicated to protecting the rights of the unborn. The ACLJ is based in Washington, D.C. and is online at www.aclj.org .
First, let me thank you for helping either with money to the national campaign or your passion at the state and local levels. This is a citizens' campaign that is on its way to a massive education, recruitment and advocacy effort that will finally put so much pressure on Congress that we can't be stopped.
But this overdue journey begins with a test.
We have been raising the funds you've generously helped provide so we can test multiple messages about the FairTax and multiple methods of getting the message out to the American people. The results of this test will tell us the best way to educate and recruit people and the best mediums to reach the most people for the least cost.
You helped us - thank you.
In the last few weeks, we've begun placing ads on different internet sites including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo. You can see these ads by clicking here: http://www.fairtax.org/landing/ads/.
At the same time, we've been designing special education pages about various aspects of the FairTax so newcomers - attracted to our ads - can click and learn about how the legislation can help the nation. You can see these, too, by clicking the links below:
Abolishing the IRS Starts Here
A Tax Break for Hardworking Americans
How to Create a FairTax System
Creating an Economic Boom
Will the FairTax Work?
Can We Win?
FairTax Petition to Congress
This is the first part of the test but not the only part.
We're also trying recorded phone solicitations - you might have received a call already - and we will soon start mailing FairTax packages to people's homes.
If it seems like it's all about the money, you're partly right for the moment. We need to raise the necessary funds to buy the internet ads, record and send the telephone messages, and print and mail the direct mail packages. Some of the funds raised are going into the message and test design and the analysis of the results.
The tests will tell us which messages work best on what mediums. These messages are being tested not just in different places on the internet, but with different known groups in the public such as Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Among many others, investors, business owners, and self-employed Americans will be tested with messages that emphasize the various virtues of the FairTax such as abolishing the IRS, ending the corruption of the tax system in Congress, or how the FairTax will create a generations-long new American economic boom.
When the tests are completed, we will have a valuable body of knowledge that will paint a roadmap to take the FairTax to every American voter. That's when the massive education and recruitment campaign begins. We will have the best messages that are proven to be most effective with people from different political perspectives and walks of life - this is a campaign, after all, to unite the American people for a far better tax system.
It's a snowball strategy.
When more people are recruited, more funds can be raised to educate and recruit even more until the point that every Congressional district has thousands of FairTax supporters. Our goal is nothing less than millions of Americans demanding real change for the good of the nation. Additional support from the public also means your campaign gets stronger with more aggressive media relations efforts, better representation of the campaign in Washington, and better support of state and local FairTax activities. FairTax rallies have taken us this far; now we are beginning to take the campaign to the next level.
And that's when we start really turning up the heat on elected officials. At every turn, Members of Congress, the White House, and the national media must be hearing the demand by the public for the FairTax. In essence, elected officials will have to fear losing elections more than they love the corrupted power of Congress over the tax system.
Many have asked how we trump the influence and power of the political elite in Washington who profit so richly from manipulating the tax code. The answer is easy - and hard. We do it one Congressional district at a time with overwhelming citizen pressure.
For years, the underlying FairTax research, the FairTax caps and T-shirts, recruiting tri-folds, ads, rallies, and other activities have been paid for by a relatively few people. We think of these FairTax supporters as the heroes--the vanguard pioneers of a better chapter of our American history. But these too few cannot be expected to carry all the weight. Our recent hard-charging fundraising efforts have dramatically expanded that FairTax base so we can transform the FairTax campaign into a national movement and powerful cause embraced by the majority of the American people.
As one elderly FairTax supporter recently wrote us, "I want my America back again!" Amen.
With your generous help, we're on our way.
Thank you - and count on hearing the results of these tests and, soon after, the number of new FairTax supporters recruited to our critically needed cause.
Ken Hoagland
FairTax Director of Communications
PS - Our challenge is making everyone aware of the FairTax and how it can help the nation. Would you take a moment right now to send an electronic postcard to three friends?
The response to my message last night has been overwhelming, yet highly encouraging. More than 10,000 of you opened the email, and I stayed up well into the early morning reading responses.
Indeed, our government has openly declared war against the people of this great country. This government is now acting with malice through deadly legislation aimed at owning our lives and stripping us of our liberty.
And I'll be damned if I'm going to standby and let it happen without a fight. Judging by the responses I received last night, most of you are with me.
I stayed up most of the night thinking of what should come next. Obviously, our tea parties and recess rallies have had significant impact, but have done little to deter corrupt politicians from meddling with our lives.
I believe I know what our next step needs to be. It needs to be aggressive, it needs to be well coordinated, well organized and well planned.
Tomorrow (Monday), I'll be announcing a new project aimed at removing Congress and replacing it with citizen representation.
This project requries a professional team. A team that I must now assemble in record time in preparation for what will unfold.
We're in need of the following to step up and help us launch this new project this week.
Required Teams:
-Legal Team
If you're an attorney, you believe our liberty is at stake, and you wish to help us develop something that can combat tyranny, please reply immediately. We need two or three attorneys who can represent us, help file a handful of documents and applications, and essentially make sure we're compliant and clean from possible legal attack.
-Communications Team
Do you work in communications and have some time to lend? Are you unemployed and looking to get in on the ground floor of something big within the movement?
We're going to need to develop a professional, strategic minded communications to begin preparing our narrative for 2010
-Video Production/Graphic Communication Team
We intend to launch a national ad campaign aimed at hitting government from all angles. This campaign will consist of multiple viral web ads, TV ads, web banner ads, Facebook ads, newspaper ads and much more.
-Voice/Audio Communication
If you do voiceover work or have the ability to produce high quality radio spots, please contact us immediately.
-Media Buys Team
Have experience with media buys? Let's talk.
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Enough is enough, folks. War has been declared against us. We can't accept that declaration sitting down.
I don't know about you, but I'm ready to fight back.
Give me liberty, or give me death!
Please watch for our announcement about the Grassroots Pledge sometime tomorrow.
Dick is so busy trying to lay the blame for this at President Obama's feet that he is willing to use the tragedy to further his own political agenda. By Dicks very own admission, it is reckless to allow people with mental problems with access to weapons yet he doesn't say a single word about the easy availability of the weapon used. Instead he tries to shift the blame to the military for allowing Hasan access to a great arsenal, conveniently leaving out the fact that had Hasan tried to obtain a military issue weapon it would've been far more difficult for him to do so. Which is why he went off post to buy his gun. It's people like Dick and his right wing buddies, so quick to use a human tragedy for their political gain, that has caused the conservatives to be marginalized and their rants viewed as the ramblings of ignorant, opportunistic parasites. Instead of offering anything constructive or even condolences, Dick was quick to use the massacre for his own twisted purposes. Just like his fear mongering and continual lying about healthcare, he is only further alienating and insulting the majority of Americans.
Also, according to Dick, "...with full access to a military base and its arsenal of weapons, while holding the views he did...". Why isn't he calling for the summary dismissal of known white power supporters from the miltary? They are driven by a political agenda, hence according to Dick's criteria, they are terrorists. How about fundamental Christians who want to the government to rule based on their "christian" tenets? A political motivation if I ever saw one, hence according to Dick's criteria, terrorists.
What Dick doesn't realize (actually he probably does, he just deosn't let facts get in his way) is that a soldier on a military post doesn't just have "full access" to a gigantic arsenal. Weapons are more closely controlled on a military post than they are in the civilian world. A soldier CANNOT carry a personal weapon on post without signing for the weapon from the armory, even if he has a civilian weapons permit. Every soldier is issued a weapons card which must be presented to the company armorer before being issued a weapon. To insinuate that any soldier can simply pick up any weapon on a military base at any time is irresponible, stupid and reckless. What Dick conveniently leaves out is that the weapons the Major used were NOT military issue. They were bought OFF POST at a CIVILIAN gun store. Where's Dicks calls for closer gun control? After all allowing someon to purchase a weapon "while holding the views he did..." is extremely reckless and almost a wanton disregard for public safety.
Dick is so busy gleefully trying to place the blame for what happened at Fort Hood at Presidents Obama's feet that he insults not only the thousands of dedicated Muslim American soldiers serving right now but ALL soldiers by spreading baseless lies. By ignoring the fact that weapons are so closely controlled on military bases it would give 2nd Amendment fanatics a heart attack adn implying that soldiers can and do have access to these weapons whenever they please is plain ignorant.
By now most of you know that the House of Representatives passed the Government Takeover of Healthcare Bill late last night. A large group of your fellow Tea Party Patriots from all over the country was there. We were watching the debate and votes from the gallery in the Capitol after a long day of last minute lobbying. Now we're all heading back to our hometowns for a home-cooked meal and a quick nap.
Despite our temporary loss in this battle, we are not defeated. In fact, it's likely that this bill's passage in the house will shock and jolt even more Americans into joining our fight and putting a stop to the Government Takeover of Healthcare before it passes the Senate.
We are ready to put them to work.
Starting this evening Tea Party Patriots are launching three cross-country relay routes to hold Tea Parties in cities from coast to coast. We're calling it the Farmer Relief & Freedom Relay, and we're focusing on three major issues that are relevant to our core principles. Those issues are:
1.) Government Takeover of Healthcare - This can still be stopped in the Senate.
2.) Cap and Trade - This can still be stopped in the Senate.
3.) Eco-Tyranny (government taking away freedom under the guise of protecting the environment) - This has come to a head in California's Central Valley where the farming industry is being crippled by the government cutting off water to save a minnow. We will fight this in both the House and the Senate while also providing aid to our fellow Patriots who are being hurt by this situation.
So rest up today and wake up tomorrow ready to renew the fight! Check our website for daily updates and keep watching for our emails for local and national action alerts. Also, continue to contact your Senators daily and organize Tea Parties in your own city to demonstrate our resolve.
You and the millions of other Tea Party Patriots across the country have held the line on many major issues despite liberal control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They thought they would ram their liberal agenda through quickly with little to no resistance. Together we have shocked and awed them by fighting tooth and nail for fiscal responsibility, free markets, and constitutionally limited government. Our opponents fear us. They fear you, as they should. Because they know you, and I, and all of us will not sit back and let them do away with freedom.
In his nationally televised remarks following the horrendous killings at Ft. Hood, President Obama never mentioned the T word. The attack was an act "of violence." No mention of terrorism.
In fact, the Ft. Hood shooting is the first terror attack on American soil since 9-11. But Obama, reluctant to take the rap for inadequate protections against such attacks, is doing everything he can to make it look like an adult version of the Columbine school shootings. We are treated to stories about the killer's dread of being sent back to Afghanistan and his deformed personality.
But, the fact is that Major Nidal Malik Hasan jumped on a table, yelled "Alah Hu Akhbar" and began the shooting rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 30 more.
Ilana Freedman, CEO and Senior Analyst for the Gerard Group International, which provides intelligence analysis for business and homeland security, describes Hasan as a "lone wolf terrorist" who acts without apparent coordination with any other person or organization. But that does not make him any less of a terrorist.
The dividing line, of course, between a terrorist and a psychopathic killer is political motivation. His statements right before opening fire would indicate that Hasan was motivated by fanaticism and a commitment to Islamic fascism, even though President Obama bends over backwards to avoid saying so.
Obama's refusal to call the attack terrorism, and to heed the warning signs about the porous nature of our security system that allowed it to happen on a military base, recalls President Clinton's deliberate decision to downplay the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. He did not visit the site of the attack and treated it as a crime, promising to find those guilty and punish them, rather than to attack the international groups that funded and enabled them.
There may be no groups behind Major Hasan's attack, but the fact that he was an officer in the Army, with full access to a military base and its arsenal of weapons, while holding the views he did, is the first indication of a laxity in security under President Obama. This attack did not take place in a shopping mall or a school, where security procedures are, understandably, relaxed. It happened on the highest security place of all - a military base! That the military failed to spot the possibility of an attack and had no measures in place to prevent it must be laid at the feet of the commander-in-chief of that military: President Barack Obama.
Many commentators have warned that the diminution of security and the weakening of our anti-terrorist protections would leave us vulnerable to be hit again. Now it has happened. And the president is doing everything he can to blur the distinction between murder and terrorism.
(Keep in mind that this must now go through Senate)
Many of you have already messaged me with your concern that this war is over. I can assure you, it has only begun my friends. We must now vote everyone who supported this bill out of office. It is our responsibility, not only to ourselves, but to our children.
It is possible to reverse the effects of this Bill.. But we must work immediately. We should all seek to vote all members of congress who voted "Yea" on this bill out of office.
Stats:
# of Republicans In Congress - 178
# of Democrats In Congress - 256
The Vote Was 220/215
218 Needed To Pass
Passed By 3 Votes
36 Democrats Voted "Nea"
1 Republican Voted "Yea"
The Republican was Anh “Joseph” Cao who represents Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District. If you would like to contact Mr. Cao's office, please use the following information:
DC Office:
2113 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-6636
New Orleans Office:
4640 So. Carrollton Ave. Suite 120
New Orleans, LA 70119
Phone: (504) 483-2325
Fax: (504) 483-7944
Fax: (202) 225-1988
Tonight we ran short on votes. The war for freedom and liberty is far from being over. The Liberal Left who pushed through this bill know that it will cost them more than what it was worth. Their actions tonight will be the reason for the huge losses in 2010 and 2012 – if we can regroup and fight back. Yes, we must regroup. Now is the time to fight back. They are weak. Have you forgotten that WE won last Tuesday in Virginia, New Jersey!
America’s fight for freedom has always been won by hard work and perseverance. On September 23, 1779, John Paul Jones fought one of the bloodiest engagements in naval history. Jones struggled with the 44-gun Royal Navy frigate Serapis, and although his own vessel was burning and sinking, Jones would not accept the British demand for surrender, replying, “I have not yet begun to fight.” More than three hours later, Serapis surrendered and Jones took command.
Tonight the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to H.R. 3962, by a vote of 240 to 194, with 64 Democratic members voting in favor of the amendment to ban federal funding of abortion in the health care bill.
This is a great victory for the pro-life movement and for all SBA List members who so diligently contacted their Representatives leading up to the vote. With the adoption of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, the House of Representatives made a principled and sound decision to continue our nation’s longstanding policy of protecting taxpayers’ conscience in the area of abortion funding.
In the coming weeks, we will remain vigilant and shift our efforts to the Senate to ensure that these same pro-life protections are included in the Senate bill. We fully expect that pro-abortion leaders will still try to find ways to sneak abortion funding into health care.
For now though, let's celebrate this great victory for unborn children and women. Thank you for all of your efforts in defense of Life. Together we can save countless unborn lives.
God bless,
Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List
www.sba-list.org
P.S. Tonight we had a great victory for the pro-life movement, but we still have much work to do to keep abortion of health care reform
You cry and whine about government trying to run people's lives yet YOU want to run womens lives by getting between them and their doctors when discussing abortion.
YOU want to tell people how to live their lives and denigrate, smear and try to intimidate anyone who doesn't blindly follow YOUR ideology.
YOU find nothing wrong with people making violent racist comments not only agains the President of the United States, but his family as well.
YOU lie about how many follow your ideas, about how many participate in your "press conferences".
YOU whine about Democrats using "astroturf" organizations while using logistical and financial funding from proven "astroturf" organizations like AMericans for Prosperity and Freedonworks.
YOU want the very power you say government wants to dictate to the rest of the country how their lives whould be.
YOU empower and spread proven falsehoods about the Presidents birthplace, his "corrupt" administration, refuse to muzzle those that espouse violence, refuse to denounce outright lies told by your supporters, yet whine when people stop believing you.
YOU decided to overthrow the chosen Republican candidate in NY-23 (who would've voted the Republican party line) because she didn't follow EVERY one of your tenets.
YOU shouted down, ridiculed and denied represensatives at town halls the right to talk while unable to contribute anything to the healthcare debate.
YOU then cried that you were left out when YOU offered nothing but insults.
YOU decided to use falshoods and lies to build YOUR supports and then cried foul when those supports were exposed for the lies they were and started to crumble one by one.
YOU allowed talk show hosts with extreme agendas, beholden to no one to usurp the leadership positions in YOUR organizations.
YOU listened to those leaders and turned against the people elected BY THE PEOPLE.
YOU believed that these talk hosts had YOUR best interests in mind when all they care about are ratings, their contract and manipulating unquestioning minions like yourselves.
YOU wanted the status quo to continue that causes the death of over 44,000 Americans a year (that's almost 15 911's a YEAR).
YOU call those without health insurance as their "choice", the jobless as lazy, even as more and more of YOUR own people joins those ranks everyday.
YOU look at compassion and government's responibility to and for ALL the people, not just those that can contribute big money to campaigns, as an evil that should be destoyed.
YOU refuse to believe that for the first time in a long time that the government has finally decided to protect all of us from rampaging corporate greed.
YOU don't have to thank to Congress when everyone has access to insurance, even, God forbid, someone you might know.
YOU wanted to allow insurance companies to continue with their odious pre-existing policy and their policy of scurtinizing every insurance claim for something, anything that will allow them to deny coverage.
YOU told lies about cuts to Medicare while siding with organizations that want to privatize not only Social Security but Medicare as well.
YOU were so obssessed with listening to people like Betsy McCaughey, Michelle Bachmann, Malkin, Beck, Limbaugh, WND, RedState, et al, you refused to see the lies that they were spreading in order to protect corporations not you.
I don't normally get this emotional when writing a newsletter, so I'll have to apologize ahead of time. This is an emotional evening for me.
It's 10:12 PM here in Chicago. I just watched a room for of Democrats (and one Republican) clap and cheer as they realized they had the votes needed to pass Nancy Pelosi's healthcare legislation.
I honestly don't think I've felt this angry in years. I can't imagine how a room full of people elected to look out for our rights as Americans can so comfortably vote to strip us of them.
And worse, clap and cheer about their success in doing so.
I'm not sure if these thugs are just sick with power and look for complete control, or if they're so heavily struck with narcissism that they genuinely don't understand what it is that they're doing.
But either way, this legislation seeks to destroy everything that made our country great. This bill rips from us our personal liberty, our reason for hard work, our drive for productivity, and our ability to be free in our personal responsibility.
Should this legislation pass the Senate, we Americans will be forced to choose healthcare that is run by a government of thugs and power hungry special interest shrills. And if we refuse, we'll face up to $250,000 in fines and up to 5 years in jail.
At this point in time, I feel the urge to begin considering the reality of what we're up against. I no longer have any desire to be politically correct. It's time to start recognizing this for what it is.
Our Government, a body made up of powerful people entrusted to protect our liberty and freedom, has openly declared war on us.
If this legislation passes the Senate... I pray God will help us all.
When CBS News failed to do even cursory fact-checking on Joe Wilson's infamous outburst, it was merely the most recent example of poor journalism at the network Cronkite built. CBS now stands for Credulous Breathless Stenography.
On August 17th, CBS ran a story on the American Seniors Association, a "conservative alternative" to the American Association of Retired Persons, or AARP. At the time, MediaMatters dug into CBS News' repetition of the ASA's claims that "up to" 60,000 AARP members had torn up their cards, finding it specious at best:
There's no reason to take ASA's claims about AARP's membership seriously -- they are not in any position to know, and have a clear interest in inflating the number of cancellations. That's almost certainly how CBS News "has learned" about the AARP membership cancellations -- ASA told them. And, since ASA has no idea how many people have actually canceled AARP memberships, and ASA has a clear motivation for inflating those numbers, CBS had to include the "up to" wiggle words.
In short, that first sentence of the CBS report is a pretty clear indication that you should ignore everything that follows. (Emphasis mine)
As we've seen with the outright fabrication of crowd figures at the Washington, D.C. "tea party" this weekend, inflating the numbers is one of the critical elements of astroturfing. A group that wants to seem bigger than it is will always go for a nice, round figure like 60,000; it has enough psychological significance to convince innumerate viewers that ASA is off to a great start...when in fact that number represents far less than one month's membership gain by the AARP.
Nor did CBS report that ASA was offering a free year of membership if you sent them your torn up AARP card -- it was right there at the top of their website:
You have to wonder why CBS would do a piece on any organization, let alone such a politically outspoken one, without even bothering to look at its website. In fact, from what I discovered during a single hour of web-based investigation is a thinly-veiled Republican front group.
The right wing has a long-term strategy of turning Americans against their own interests, undermining the remnants of the New Deal and Great Society. The ASA is just another flimsy part of that same strategy. From their boilerplate:
At American Seniors Association, we don't just take the government's side like some other associations. We are not some big liberal bureaucracy here to try to scare you into going along with Big Government all the time or telling you what to think.
The organization's website offers an agenda consisting of four "pillars." The first is Social Security privatization, which ASA calls "reform;" the second is Medicare privatization, which it again calls "reform;" the third is flat taxes, which has marginal relevance to seniors living on fixed incomes.
But it is the fourth I find most interesting: "Keeping Citizen Benefits out of the hands of illegal aliens:"
Lawbreakers do not deserve Social Security payments intended for you and your family who are citizens.
In retracing the history of this organization, you will find these "pillars" (especially the anti-immigrant fever) recurring through image makeovers and name changes. Another constant is the set of names that keeps popping up. For example, a quick WHOIS lookup of the ASA website finds it registered to one Amy Sullenberger, who lists her employer here as "Georgia Republican Party." I took a screenshot in case it goes away:
Search for Amy's tracks and you'll find press releases like this one from the "National Association for Senior Concerns (NASCON.org):"
NASCON.org, The National Association for Senior Concerns has just celebrated its first anniversary. Big deal, you say? It is when you are the David that has decided to go head to head against the Goliath (AARP), which has cornered the senior market for 50 years. Over the years, the AARP has grown increasingly more liberal, using stealth ideology to sway the largest voting block in the country. (Emphasis mine)
Solutions for the problems of the elderly are necessarily social in resolution. Retracing the history of anti-reform rhetoric on health care all the way back to 1915, Leigh Ann Caldwell at News Junkie Post says: "Since people started to organize in favor of heath care, opponents have stirred up hateful opposition, inducing Americans' fears of communism, fascism, and socialism." Ronald Reagan famously campaigned against the creation of Medicare. No one has ever invented a workable free market alternative for people who are done with the wage-earning part of their lives.
Sollenberger keeps appearing on press releases. In 2008, she wrote up a Mitt Romney town hall:
At an Election Day candidate forum in Tampa, Florida sponsored by the American Seniors Association (ASA), former Governor Mitt Romney told a crowd of the organization's conservative seniors that when it comes to fixing America's health care system, Hillarycare is not the answer.
"I am convinced we need to grab the reins on this healthcare issue and get our citizens insured but do it in a conservative and Republican way, not socialized medicine or Hillarycare," Romney told the seniors.
NASCON.org became the American Seniors Association and stopped filing IRS 990s after 2005 (warning: registration reqired) by June of 2007, when it lobbied to defeat President Bush's immigration reform bill "because of the long-term financial danger it poses to Social Security and retirement security" (all those La Raza brown people will eat your grandma!).
I haven't found an IRS 990 for "American Seniors Association," so it's entirely possible they haven't submitted one, which is par for the course with people who don't believe in taxes. It's also possible their nakedly partisan agenda no longer qualifies them for non-profit status, as the ASA website gives absolutely no information about their legal status except:
ASA is a state non-profit political advocacy group and it also has a for-profit company which handles the benefits.
The domain registration for NASCON.org is in the name of Jerry Barton, a Republican donor who once served as finance chairman for Mitch McConnell, among other GOP connections. He's now the Chairman of the American Seniors Association. His son Stuart is busy spreading "death panels" nonsense.
The American Seniors Association serves a radical right agenda. Its rhetoric is a mishmash of the usual John Bircher tinfoil-hattery and discredited conservative economics. It has changed its name at least once, but remains the same thinly-disguised Republican Party front organization.
Here's my question: if I can find all this out in thirty minutes, why couldn't CBS do at least that much?
As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the '09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these -- and the other endorsements -- his package has received are all bought and paid for.
Here are the deals:
* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians' reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill...or else!
* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.
Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP -- which supposedly represents them -- will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group; contact sbarton@americanseniors.org. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)
* The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.
* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don't buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.
The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn't go along with Obama's blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.
So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.
