The Quiet Revolution: How the New Left Took Over the Democratic Party

Frustration with division and gridlock in Washington lead many Americans to impugn both political parties for the current broken and ineffective state of government. There is plenty of blame to go around, but below the surface there has been a quiet revolution going on in only one of the two parties -- the Democratic Party -- which is the main source of today’s irreconcilable division and moral confusion.

Read more at American Thinker Read More......

Arrogant FCC Takes Control Over Internet

iT&Telecom News, 12/28/2010 by Bruce Walker of Heartland.org - "By a 3-2 vote, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s latest network neutrality iteration came to pass [before Christmas break], reeking of bureaucratic arrogance. ∴ Arrogance not only toward the majority of the public who expressed their contentment with the Internet without government intrusion, but also toward a Congress that refused to relinquish any statutory authority whatsoever to the FCC, and toward industry stakeholders warning of the negative economic and employment impact of the maneuver. The prolonged uncertainty injected into an industry known for rapid advancements will most certainly stifle innovations and investment. ∴ Perhaps most damning, the FCC is showing arrogance toward the U.S. Appeals Court, which told the FCC to back off last April because only Congress has the authority to implement rules over the Internet. The court’s finding was unanimous." Read more at iT & Telecom News...

What others have to say...

The Internet has taken our basic Freedom of Assembly right and adapted itself beautifully to the 21st century – a sensational transition our Founding Fathers would have been proud of. To believers in freedom, the Internet is a Godsend – the modern-day equivalent of the printing press. --Lee Bellinger

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Sunday surprise: Senate unanimously passes food safety bill

THE HILL, 12/19/2010 by Alexander Bolton - The Senate unexpectedly approved food safety legislation by unanimous consent Sunday evening, rescuing a bill that floated in limbo for weeks because of a clerical error. Read more at the HILL...

Unanimous? Unanimous! This is terrible! --bc Read More......

ALERT: S-510 Food Takeover Act, S-787 Water Takeover Act

FREE REPUBLIC (Hat tip: Linda Weimer) - "Congress will convene November 15 to try to force into law all the things they didn't get done during the regular session. No one knows for sure just which bills will be on Nancy and Harry's agenda. It's Harry's agenda that is most important because the Senate - with 60 votes required to stop debate - offers the best opportunity to stop a bill.

S-510 - Food Safety Modernization Act - is one of the bills that must be stopped. Doreen Hannes has been following this bill for several organizations during its entire existence. Here's some of her reasons why the bill must be stopped. Doreen says:

"In a nutshell, S510 is effectively NAIS (National Animal Identification System) for everything. It is a tremendous amount of additional enforcement (fines and penalties, license revocations, further license requirements, control over processes and harvest) which are definite issues with the bill as it currently exists. However, not unlike the "Health Care" bill, they will have to pass this to see what it actually does.

"Here's why....In S 510, the FDA is instructed to follow all international agreements. One of the issues with international 'guidelines and standards' is "Good Agricultural Practices". Well those are not necessarily good. Most GAP certifying bodies have checklists about 25 pages long for growers to follow. They all require traceability (i.e., NAIS) they also require auditing, verifying and certifying the processes used to produce a consumable product for human or animal feed. Every step in GAP costs the grower of food money and a good deal of paperwork. What happens if you're better at growing food than filing forms? You will be penalized (i.e., more money). Sec 420 is exceptionally dangerous in my eyes. It subjects all farms that 'produce' milk to risk assessment and management (i.e., insurance).

"The idea that exemptions will be helpful is rose-colored-glasses thinking. Exemptions can easily be taken away or modified without Congressional oversight through the regulatory process. Most farmers aren't watching the Federal Register like hawks.

"The FDA has plenty of authority to protect the anonymous food supply already. But they don't. Instead, they put small entities out of business through Hazard Analasis & Critical Control Points (HACCP), also to be expanded in this bill, and heavier regulations that are not helpful to smaller economies of scale. The FDA inspects less than 1% of imported produce, has performed inspections on less than 25% of processing failties[sic] [facilities] that they are authorized to inspect (in a five year period) and they ALREADY have authority over live food animals on the farm. The USDA authority is over animal disease."

S-787 - Clean Water Restoration Act - will give the federal government jurisdiction over all water, everywhere, as well as jurisdiction over all activity that affects water wherever it may be. This would give to the federal government effective control over every square inch of land in the United States. It too, must be stopped. (see video 3:30)"

Please register your concerns with your senators:

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) - DC (202) 224-3753, Salem (503) 362-8102
Sen. Ron Wyden (D) - DC (202) 224-5244, Salem (503) 589-4555

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Will the FCC control the Internet?

Video response from Heartland Institute: Why Obama is Wrong About Net Neutrality
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NRO: The Battle Is Lost, and the War Has Begun

NRO/CRITICAL CONDITION, 3/22/2010 by Jeffrey H. Anderson - [Excerpt] James Madison’s words cannot be repeated often enough: “The cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers.” The American people don’t want Obamacare, and the will of the American people will ultimately prevail over the will of their rulers — starting in November. ∴ Repeal will be achieved through a three-step process: First, the vast majority of Americans who oppose Obamacare will elect members to Congress who will actually reflect their views. Second, they will elect a president who will actually reflect their views. Third, this new Congress and new president will repeal the overhaul. (Remember, only 1 percent of Obamacare — based on its projected costs over the next ten years — will have kicked in by then.) Read full post at National Review Online... Read More......

WSJ: ObamaCare's Worst Tax Hike

WALL STREET JOURNAL/Opinion, 3/17/2010 - The forced march to pass ObamaCare continues, and all that matters now is raw politics. But opponents should go down swinging, and that means exposing such policy debacles as President Obama's 11th-hour decision to apply the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to "unearned income." ∴ That's what savings and investment income are called in Washington [Emphasis added], and this destructive tax wasn't in either the House or Senate bills, though it may now become law with almost no scrutiny. Read more at WSJ...

Imagine! You save and invest... and the government calls the earned interest "unearned income!" Didn't you earn it by the act of saving and investing? Keep making calls to stop this health care train wreck! --bc Read More......

Boehner: Dems prepare to pass health care takeover without a vote

REPUBLICAN LEADER JOHN BOEHNER'S BLOG, 3/10/2010 - "The twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama’s massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution. ∴ The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter’s scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply “deeming” the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House." [Emphasis added] Read more at Rep. Boehner's blog...

See also: Nancy's nutty new rules Read More......

AFP Feb. 25: The Patients' Summit

ACTION ITEM (moved to top): AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY, 2/21/2010 by Tim Phillips - I hate to tell you, BUT the battle to stop the takeover of our health care is not over. ∴ On February 25, President Obama will hold a "Health Care Summit" where he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi will unveil their "new" health care plan that they are currently writing in secret behind closed doors. ∴ The Left is hoping their "summit" will be the game-changer they need to re-launch their scheme to take over our health care system. You and I need to make sure that does not happen. ∴ At Americans for Prosperity, we're holding our own Critical Care: The Patients' Summit to deliver a simple message: the American people have rejected this trillion-dollar takeover of health care. So Congress should start over from scratch, or better yet, focus on policies that create jobs and get our economy moving again. ∴ First, we'll gather outside the Blair House at 9:30 a.m. on February 25 where President Obama will be hosting his "summit." We'll make sure attendees like Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid hear our message as they head inside. ∴ Then, beginning at 11:30am we will hold our own Critical Care: The Patients' Summit at the JW Marriott in DC. ∴ If you can't join us in person in Washington, you can still be a part of the Patients' Summit. We'll be Webcasting live online at AmericansforProsperity.org.

Between now and President Obama's "summit," we need to email and call our senators and member of Congress to tell them in advance that the American people do not want another big-government, tax-and-spend, freedom-crushing piece of legislation to come up again.

• Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) - DC (202) 224-3753, DC, Salem (503) 362-8102
  
• Sen. Ron Wyden (D) - DC (202) 224-5244, DC Fax (202) 228-2717, Salem (503) 589-4555
• Rep. Peter DeFazio (D), Oregon, 4th - DC (202) 225-6416, Eugene (541) 465-6732
• Rep. Kurt Schrader (D), Oregon, 5th - DC (202) 225-5711, Salem (503) 588-9100

A lot of senators and congressmen are wondering if the mood of the American people has changed. ∴ We've got to show them in a crystal clear fashion that the American people simply do not trust the Washington politicians with our health care. ∴ Thanks for all you're doing and let's keep fighting. Read More......

Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY, 2/17/2010 by Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara - You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings. ∴ BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams." ∴ In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years. ∴ They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds. Read more at IBD...
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ObamaCare vs. The Hippocratic Oath

BIG GOVERNMENT Op-ed by Dr. David Janda - [Excerpt] "The sad fact is that the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Administration’s 1990 page health care reform bill (HR3962) and supplement(HR3961) violate The Oath by stripping freedom from every person, family and business in Our country . This 19 ½ pound pair of documents, entitled ”Affordable Health Care For Americans Act,” will cost taxpayers over $1.2 Trillion, will institute 13 tax increases totaling $740 Billion, will increase Medicare Premiums to Seniors by $70 Billion, will cost shift $34 Billion to State budgets, and will cut Medicare benefits to Seniors by $426 Billion over ten years." Read more at Big Government... Read More......

The Truth About the House Health Care Bill

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." -- Patrick Henry

Michael Connelly, Ret. Constitutional Attorney, reviews House Health Care Bill (Hat tip: Jean Nelson/via email)

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable” to the “Health Choices Administrator” appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a “tax” instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn’t work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the “due process of law.

So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in th e Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn’t stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” The 10th Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to “be bound by oath or affirmation” to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_ri ghts_transcript.html

There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas Read More......

AFP: Is a Washington takeover of the Internet next?

To Do Item: VIA EMAIL FROM PHIL KERPEN OF AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY (AFP), 10/20/2009 - As important as all the fights are that we're in right now, perhaps the biggest of all is the fight over whether the government will take over the Internet. That's because as long as the Internet is free, we can use it to communicate, educate, and organize. Tea parties, townhalls, and AFP events would be very difficult to organize if government owned and controlled the Internet and chose to interfere with it. That's what's at stake this week as the Federal Communications Commission decides on Thursday whether to move forward with so-called "net neutrality" regulations.

The net neutrality movement is an outgrowth of the larger so-called media reform project of radical left-wing activists like Robert McChesney who seek to destroy private control of the country's communications systems.

I discussed McChesney and the so-called media reform movement last night on the Glenn Beck show, and you can watch that clip here. I'll be on with Glenn again tonight to discuss net neutrality specifically.

As the Internet Freedom Coalition shows on our Net Neutrality Scare Ticket it has now been nearly 7 years since the November 19, 2002 letter that started the net neutrality scare, without a single significant incident of the kind of egregious behavior by evil phone and cable companies we're told require government intervention. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Net neutrality sounds simple--force phone and cable companies to treat every bit of information the same way--until you realize that modern networks are incredibly complex, with millions of lines of code in every router. Making sure services like VoIP, video conferencing, and telemedicine (not to mention the next great thing that hasn't been invented yet) get priority may be necessary to make the Internet work. But the government is working to do just the opposite.

These networks cost billions of dollars to build and maintain, and if there is uncertainty whether there will be a good return on that investment, private investment will dry up. And then government will step in, spending billions of our tax dollars on a government-owned and controlled Internet.

That's their plan.

The push for a Washington takeover of the Internet is coming from the White House. It includes Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet Czar, who told The Wall Street Journal in April that the $7.2 billion of stimulus money for broadband she is helping spend is a "down payment on future government investments in the Internet." She went on to say: "We should do a better job as a nation of making sure fast, affordable broadband is as ubiquitous as electricity, water, snail mail or any other public utility."

It comes right from the top. President Obama himself said on the campaign trail: "I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to Net Neutrality."

The FCC will vote Thursday on what it calls a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Net Neutrality. If it passes, it will start a public comment period and I'll be emailing you again with instructions on how to file comments. But for the next couple days, we need to make our case against the FCC even taking that first step down the road to a Washington takeover of the Internet.

Here's what you can do to help: The FCC created a website at www.OpenInternet.gov where you can comment on government regulating the Internet under so-called net neutrality rules. The left has been flooding it with comments. Please take a moment to head over to www.OpenInternet.gov and click on "Join the Discussion" to make your voice heard for keeping the Internet in private hands.

Thanks for all you do.

Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy, Americans for Prosperity
Chairman, The Internet Freedom Coalition

P.S. Wanted to remind you again that you can see me tonight on the Glenn Beck program on FOX News at 5PM and 2AM Eastern, 2PM and 11PM Pacific. You can also contact me any time through Twitter (http://twitter.com/kerpen) or Facebook (http://facebook.com/PhilKerpen). Read More......

GOP on Health Care: Reform not government takeover

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Health Care

WASHINGTON POST, 6/24/2009 by Drew Westen (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - "Universal health care." "The uninsured." "Public option." These are the buzzwords you often hear from Democrats and proponents of President Obama's plan for health-care reform. But if they want to see that plan enacted, they'd do well to excise those phrases from their vocabulary. ∴ Words send messages, but they're not always the messages we intend. Recent polls show overwhelming support for health-care reform, including the "public option" in Obama's plan. But the reality is that which side prevails in this battle will probably depend as much on which one has its messaging right as on which has its policies right. ∴ Republicans and other opponents of Obama's plan are already operating on this assumption, guided by a memo on "the language of health care" that conservative wordsmith Frank Luntz circulated to GOP members on Capitol Hill last month. In it, he conceded that the American public wants real reform and argued that the only way Republicans can defeat Obama's plan is by co-opting the language of reform, describing the president's plan as a "government takeover" and painting it as a bureaucrat's dream and a patient's nightmare. Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......