“The power under the constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will, be recalled.”

~ George Washington (1787)

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

EAT MOR CHIKIN’

 
EAT MOR CHIKIN’
 
Wednesday is Chic-fil-a Appreciation Day…support your local store and stand up for free speech and for traditional marriage
 
CHIC-FIL-A DAY  
 
What do Chic-Fil-A and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream have in common?
 
Both these national chains have taken a stand on the definition of marriage…but the chain that stands against the traditional definition of marriage has not been the target of a national outcry, threats of boycott, attempts to ban the chain from certain communities and obscene protests.
 
Of course it is Ben & Jerry’s that support gay marriage, while Chic-Fil-A has been targeted by the politically correct elites for their corporate culture which firmly…and without apology supports the traditional…Biblical definition of marriage.
 
Which group of supporters, the gay rights supporters or those supporting traditional marriage are acting like mature adults and which is throwing a temper tantrum and acting like a spoiled teenager?
 
The gay community’s attempt to win through bullying what they cannot win at the ballot box is shameful and un-American. 
 
Today conservatives are rallying to support Chic-Fil-A by stopping by their local franchise and buying a meal. Do your part today and “Eat More Chickin”.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Tea Party schedule for the next few months...

BUMPED TO TOP AS A REMINDER.

From Martha:

1. No regular meeting in August as there will be sub groups working to get ready for the Fair.

2. Walla Walla County Fair - August 29 - September 2. Anyone interested in helping with the Fair be sure to email us at w2teaparty@gmail.com

3. September monthly meeting: Tuesday 9/11/12, 6:30 pm.
Guest Speaker: Glen Morgan from the Freedom Foundation
Topic: Property Rights, Agenda 21
In the conference room at the Walla Walla Regional Airport
4. September 12th training session with Glen Morgan, Freedom Foundation
Time and place to be determined.
Topic of Training Session: This hands on training session will focus on development of skills that we can use to make a difference here in WW County. Details will be available at the Fair.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

A not so funny cartoon

But true.  Click to enlarge.



Source:  Chris Muir of Day by Day

Taxes are not a solution

Earlier this year, the State of Illinois raised their cigarette taxes to cover a major budget gap

How is that working?  Not so well, as many people could have told Governor Pat Quinn (and did tell him, in fact): people are voting with their feet, and the street gangs are involved, because it's an easy, major source of income. 

And the State of Illinois isn't getting that extra "income".  Because people want to keep theirs.

The New Civility.....

.....as practiced (or at least tolerated) by a significant portion of the left these days:  Sarah Palin visits Chick-fil-A, civility and new tone ensue on Twitter

Well, that's no surprise

A younger Obama considered his first employer, “the enemy”

First victory in fight against ObamaCare


As the author says, don't get too excited.  Still, from the link:
The injunction only applies to Hercules Industries, not the mandate as a whole, and it’s only temporary, as William Jacobson points out at Legal Insurrection.  However, the usual paradigms for issuing temporary injunctions are that the judge believes the plaintiffs have a substantial chance of winning the case, and that the regulation or action being halted does significant damage to the plaintiff.  That hints at a favorable ruling at the district court level for Hercules, which is definitely good news.........:
Read the rest for the full story.

Up is down, and black is white.....

.....in the world of the liberals.  Or, as in the case of Obama, tax cuts are the same as the government spending money.

Except, of course, Tax Cuts Are Not ‘Spending’.

There are more

But there's only so much room:  "Top Ten Obama Failed Promises"

Another example of why the Media is dead

"Here are 6 Moments Where the Media has Wrongly Blamed Conservatives (and the Tea Party) for Violence"

Cartoon Roundup

Click to enlarge.  More below the fold:

Federal employee forgets who he works for

"DOJ official refuses to promise that DOJ will NEVER advance an anti-blasphemy law"

As a reminder:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America

Requiem

"The Day Old Media Died"

ObamaCare working

Just not the way Americans would like:   Indiana company scraps plans for expansion over ObamaCare device tax

Two Videos....

....regarding Obama's economic plans and policies:



Sunday, July 22, 2012

Republican Senatorial candidates debate in Walla Walla

Michael Baumgartner and Dr. Art Coday met in a debate sponsored by the Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots.  Both men are running in the primary election for the nomination to run against sitting Senator Maria Cantwell. The debate was held on 10 July 2012, at the Walla Walla Regional Airport conference room. 

As part of a senior project at Walla Walla University, the debate was video recorded.  The YouTube videos are below, and are in two parts because of file sizes.  Please pass this on to all interested people.


Part 1:


Part 2:

A riddle

How do you tell a Romney supporter from an Obama supporter?

Romney supporters sign their checks on the front; Obama supporters sign them on the back.

Cartoon Roundup

Click to enlarge.  More below the fold:


From The Tenth Amendment Center Blog

The Constitution is not Self-Enforcing.

Thanks to Mark!

If it bleeds, it leads

 An excellent analysis of the attempt by a major news outlet to smear the Tea Party with the tragedy in Aurora last week:

With Extreme PrejudiceHow ABC News "investigates" a horrific crime.

More plantiffs in ObamaCare lawsuit


The Obama administration is facing growing resistance to its anti-conscience mandate two weeks before the policy goes into effect. Yesterday evangelical Wheaton College announced it was joining a lawsuit against the mandate. Last week another Illinois institution, Catholic Charities of Chicago, sued the administration.

The Department of Health and Human Services mandate becomes official on Aug. 1. It requires employers to cover abortion drugs, contraception and sterilization, even if they have religious or moral objections. The administration’s so-called “accommodation” has failed to address the concerns of organizations, prompting the rash of lawsuits attempting to overturn the directive.

Wheaton College joined a lawsuit with the Catholic University of America in D.C. District Court on Wednesday. It became the fourth Protestant college to sue the government, joining Colorado Christian University, Geneva College and Louisiana College.

There are now more than 20 separate cases and nearly 60 individual plaintiffs,......
 Read the rest here.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

It's here!

The Freedom Foundation voter resource guide!

It's not just them


"Both parties have equally participated in abandoning the limited role of the federal government," says Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), whose new book, The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting Our Economy, argues that Republicans and Democrats together have brought the U.S. to the brink of fiscal calamity.
 More here.  Thanks to Martha.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Can we get back to this way of thinking?

(Click to enlarge)

Update:  A friend demonstrated that Abraham Lincoln never said this.  But this will stay up anyway -- even if Abraham Lincoln didn't say it, he should have.

Congress has officially jumped the shark


Money quote:
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you read that correctly. Gone are the days when the United States Congress focused their business on Constitutional, nationally-relevant issues, like — oh, I don’t know — passing a budget. It appears that, while those gosh darn obstructionist Republicans with all of their useless show votes and filibusters are the malicious harbingers of utter partisanship, the Democrats are now dedicating their legislative efforts to supporting the Obama campaign’s petty fits of populist whimsy.
 More here.  And please, pass this on.  Congress needs to be changed out like an old diaper.

The Work of the Tea Party


One definition of insantity is......

......doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results:

Speaking at a July 16 campaign event in Cincinnati, Ohio, President Obama insisted that he does not make the same mistake twice, and that he would remain steadfast in his efforts to subsidize the “green” energy industry. “I don’t know about you, but in my life what I’ve found, you know, sometimes I do boneheaded things, I make mistakes,” Obama conceded. “I find, when I try something that doesn’t work, then I don’t try it again. I don’t — you don’t go back to doing something that didn’t work.”

Soon after, the president promised that he would continue to “invest” in alternative-energy technology if he is reelected in November. “We’re going to invest in American energy,” he vowed. “Yes, we want to continue to expand our production of oil and natural gas, but I also want to make sure we are the leaders in solar and biodiesel — the energy of the future that can help reduce dependence on foreign oil.”

The Department of Energy (DOE) under the Obama administration doled out roughly $9 billion for solar and wind projects from 2009 to 2011, resulting in the conception of a whopping 910 direct jobs — equaling about $9.8 million per job — according to a report by the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Overall, an analysis by the Heritage Foundation reveals that a startling 19 companies that were granted federal loans or grants by the Obama administration have either filed for bankruptcy or are currently in the process of doing so.........
More here.  

MIA? Or just AWOL?


President Barack Obama’s Jobs Council hasn’t met publicly for six months, even as the issue of job creation dominates the 2012 election.

At this point, the hiatus — which reached the half-year mark Tuesday — might be less awkward than an official meeting, given the hornet’s nest of issues that could sting Obama and the council members if the private-sector panel gets together.

For starters, there’s the discomfort many business leaders may feel in appearing to embrace the president with his reelection bid in full swing.

Then, there’s the fact that some members of the commission have conspicuously declined to endorse him. And that Obama has conspicuously declined to endorse some of their recommendations. And that some of what Obama won’t endorse has been warmly embraced by Republicans, including likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

To cap it all off, several of the companies whose CEOs serve on the panel are involved to some extent in outsourcing — a fact that could undercut the ferocious attack Obama and his campaign are mounting on Romney over his alleged ties to the practice.
Read the rest here.

(Military jargon: MIA = "missing in action", AWOL = "Absent Without Leave")

Nancy Pelosi: "Don't panic! All is well!"

First, the good news, at least for House Democrats.  Instead of running for the lifeboats to escape the debacle unfolding in Charlotte in the next few weeks, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has announced an official “abandon ship“:
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi says that Democratic members should stay home and campaign in their districts rather than go to the party’s national convention in North Carolina.
“I’m not encouraging anyone to go to the convention, having nothing to do with anything except I think they should stay home, campaign in their districts, use their financial and political resources to help them win their election,” Pelosi said in an exclusive interview for POLITICO Live’s On Congress, a new weekly show to be streamed live on POLITICO’s website and broadcast on NewsChannel 8 on Wednesdays. …
“We nominated a president last time. We have an incumbent President of the United States. We’re very proud of him. There certainly will be enough people there to express that pride, but I’m not encouraging members to go to the convention no matter what the situation was, because they can be home. It’s campaign time. It’s the first week in September,” she said.
 Read the rest here.  And here's a fine image of how the Democrats are viewing the 2012 Presidential campaign:


Affordable Health Care Forum

A news release from the Milton-Freewater Tea Party Patriots group, who will be hosting a forum on the Affordable Health Care Act:

Announcement

What:  Affordable Health Care Forum, A *Factual *Presentation

Why:  Visiting with people in various venues has shown that quite a few folks from across NE Oregon and SW Washington have indicated an interest in a Non-Partisan nature of the panel and the "Facts Only" forum on the Health Care Law. 

NOTE:  *All presenters are committed to presenting the FACTS ONLY - NO SPIN.  *

There on the panel:  2 non-partisan presenters, 1liberal presenter, and 1 conservative presenter.

Panel Members:
- Al Humphrey.  Subject: Non-medical aspects.
     Criminal Justice and Social Service Career
- Dennis Burke,  Hospital Related aspects.
     Hospital Administrator Career
- Dr. Frank Erickson, Single Payer aspects.
     Physician Career
- Jack Esp, Funding aspects.
     Hospital Administrator Career

Where:  American Legion & VFW Hall, 424 NE 8th St., Milton-Freewater, OR

When:  Thurs., July 19, 2012, 6:30 PM

Sponsor:  Milton-Freewater Tea Party Patriots.

Moderator:  Larry Nye

Monday, July 16, 2012

A commentary about the recent ObamaCare decision



The rule of law is perhaps the most critical component of liberty. It is the bedrock of justice and America has been unique in its application. The principle that no man is above the law and that the rule of law is the stabilizing consistent standard of a free society has been under attack since January 20th 2009.

From dropping a case already won in court against the New Black Panther thugs caught on camera intimidating voters, to the declaration by the Justice Department that civil rights laws only apply to minorities and that whites need not apply…from the theft of bond holder property given to the automobile unions to the public declaration that he would not defend the Defense of Marriage Act…from the contempt of court on display when the administration refused to lift the drilling moratorium in the gulf to the contempt of Congress by the Attorney General, this administration has deemed the law is whatever they say it is.

No democratic republic can long stand without a deep and abiding belief that the law is the same for all men and not subject to the pernicious whim of a few. When the idea takes hold that the ruling class no longer answers to the will of the people…when it becomes apparent that government does not have the consent of the governed, then the social contact establishing that government is void and drastic action must be taken to re-establish that trust.

Today 77% of America's don't believe that this government has the consent of the governed.

Democrats using your paycheck to force tax deal in Senate

Democrats open door to letting taxes rise in 2013 to reset debate with GOP
Senate Democrats appear willing to use your paycheck to play political hardball on taxes unless Republicans agree to President Obama's plan to raise taxes on America's top earners.

A top Senate Democrat warned Monday that, if Republicans don't relent, her caucus is willing to let all the Bush-era tax rates expire at the end of the year -- in effect threatening to let the country fall off what many in Washington call the "fiscal cliff."

That cliff is approaching at the start of 2013, when the Bush tax cuts are set to expire and billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts -- spawned by last summer's debt-ceiling debate -- are set to take effect. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are hoping to shift around those spending cuts to spare key areas like defense, and to temporarily extend the Bush tax rates for at least some Americans. Some have warned a failure to do so could send the nation back into recession.

But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., indicated Democrats are willing to let the deadline pass in order to better their negotiating position. 
Read the rest here.
This move by the Democrats assumes that they will have control of the Senate in 2013. Let's do our part and make sure they don't.....by booting Maria Cantwell out of office.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Poland: Home of the Free, and thankful for it


Polish officials unveiled a statue of former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II on Saturday, honoring two men widely credited in this Eastern European country with helping to topple communism 23 years ago.

The statue was unveiled in Gdansk, the birthplace of Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, in the presence of about 120 former Solidarity activists, many of whom were imprisoned in the 1980s for their roles in organizing or taking part in strikes against the communist regime.

The bronze statue, erected in the lush seaside President Ronald Reagan Park, is a slightly larger-than-life rendering of the two late leaders. It was inspired by an Associated Press photograph taken in 1987 on John Paul's second pontifical visit to the U.S.

reaganJPII.jpg 

More here.  Perhaps a thank you note to Poland is in order.

Secrets about a presidential candidate!

Read all about it here

Energy production will help the economy


No state has done a better job of creating jobs than North Dakota. It has the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at 3 percent and leads all states with the fastest-growing household income in America over the past few years.
 

Except, of course, for the Obama Administration: 
 

Undignified

"He called me when I came close to cinching the Republican nomination, congratulated me and said we're going to have an important debate, a meaningful debate about the future of the country. I'm waiting for that to start. All we've seen so far from his campaign is one attack after another. No effort to really talk about the real issues that people care about," Romney said.
All Americans are waiting for that "effort to really talk about the real issues".  And have been since January 21, 2009.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Two events on Saturday, July 14th!

There are two upcoming events on this Saturday,  July 14th:
Gil Alden, keynote speaker from our April 15th rally, to speak Saturday!
Topic: "Barack Obama, America and a Christian Response"
Saturday July 14th
8:00 am
Blue Mountain Community Church
928 Sturm Ave

Opportunity to meet local & state elected officials & candidates!
Walla Walla County GOP Picnic
Saturday July 14th
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Ft. Walla Walla - Rotary Shelter 
(Picnic flyer below the fold)

Welfare run amok

Here are some very scary charts and numbers.  A sampling:
– In the 1960s, there were 18 workers per Medicaid recipient. Today that number is 2.5.

– The number of Americans on disability has risen 19% faster than jobs created during this recovery.

– There are just 1.2 private sector workers per 1 person on welfare or working for government.

– There are now just 1.65 employed persons in private sector per 1 person on welfare assistance.

6 Reasons to Repeal ObamaCare

UPDATE and bumped to top:  Click here for the PDF version.

Click to enlarge.  Page 2 is below the fold. 



Wednesday, July 11, 2012

What is "sustainable development"?

From Did You Know Online:

"A Sustainable Development Q&A":  This simplified Q&A answers basic questions about how a seemingly good idea like sustainable development can be bad for private property owners.

3 Steps You Can Take to Improve Election Integrity

From the Freedom Foundation.  Well worth the read.

The last remaining socially acceptable form of racism

Lobbyists on Capitol Hill throw a “White Trash Reception”.

This is ample proof that we need a major change in Washington, D.C.

Title and link gratefully swiped from Paco Enterprises.

The Freedom Foundation

Just a reminder of an excellent resource for information on matters of concern to conservatives everywhere: The Freedom Foundation.

California, the model state

Of how not to run any government:


Third California city in two weeks declares bankruptcy.

Obama redefines "fair share"


Wealthy Americans earn about 50 percent of all income but pay nearly 70 percent of the federal tax burden, according to the latest analysis Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office — though the agency said the very richest have seen their share of taxes fall the last few years.

CBO looked at 2007 through 2009 and found the bottom 20 percent of American earners paid just three-tenths of a percent of the total tax burden, while the richest 20 percent paid 67.9 percent of taxes.

The top 1 percent, who President Obama has made a target during the presidential campaign, earns 13.4 percent of all pre-tax income, but paid 22.3 percent of taxes in 2009, CBO said. But that share was down 4.4 percentage points from 2007, CBO said in a finding likely to bolster Mr. Obama’s calls for them to pay more by letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire.

The big losers over the last few years were the rest of the well-off, especially those in the top fifth, who saw their tax burdens go up.
The rest is here.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

"Hypocrisy Hypocrisy Hypocrisy"?

Ouch! indeed


Former Obama donor Ronald Perelman, the chairman of Revlon, is not supporting Barack Obama this year… And he just held a high dollar fundraiser for Mitt Romney in the Hamptons.  Mondoweiss reported:

The New York Times reports that Romney had a big fundraiser at Revlon chairman Ron Perelman’s house in the Hamptons over the weekend.

But just four years ago, Perelman maxed out for Barack Obama. according to federal records.

Why the change? .......................................
Read the rest here!

Endorsed by George Soros!

Want to know why liberals are so hard to communicate with? Ask George Lakoff, author of "The Little Blue Book: Quotations from Chairman Lakoff".  A relevant quote: 
...... Lakoff is not just any intellectual celebrity: he is deemed one of the most important contemporary philosophers of progressive thought. You know how whenever Democrats lose an election, they invariably blame their “poor messaging” and never ever the content of their policies? Lakoff came up with that. Liberals find it very reassuring: We don’t need to rethink our ideas — we just need to express ourselves more clearly.
 Courtesy of that excellent blogger, Zombie, who has an excellent summary at the link.

Cartoon round up

A selection of cartoons, funny and serious.  Click to enlarge:


"If I wanted America to fail"

An excellent video that you should watch and pass on to your friends.

Nobel Prize Winner A Sore Loser

Paul Krugman is a condescending, smug, self-righteous, hypocritical jerk. And that's on a good day, when he's not carry water for Obama.

So it's a great day when this Nobel prize winning Keynesian gets smacked down in public, to his face. Here's a great quote from this event:
"Keynesians got us into this mess and now we (non-Keynesians) have to sacrifice our principals so that they can get us out of this mess."

President Outsourcer

Obama's complaining about Romney's supposed outsourcing. 
But he's got nothing on Obama. Who, among other things, gave $500 million to Fisker to build electric cars, and all that money went straight to Finland.  Using tax payer money. 

 More from Real Clear Politics.

Monday, July 9, 2012

A word of thanks

Tea Party Volunteers:

A huge thank you to all who volunteered at the Walla Walla Tea Party booth on the 4th of July in Pioneer Park.  We could not have asked for a more perfect day, the weather was made to order. 

There were many visitors to the booth and it was a very positive experience.  Martha Clinehens added thirty-three new and interested individuals to our database.  The information provided to the public re Obamacare, taxes, upcoming tea party events, is consistent with our goals to educate the public.

We have come a long way from our humble beginnings in 2009, and it's all due to our great volunteers.  Thank you so much.

DF
Events Coordinator

P.S.  There will be another opportunity to volunteer at the County Fair, August 29-Sept. 2.

Milton-Freewater Vacation Liberty School

Got some spare time?  Our counterparts in Milton-Freewater are holding their Second Annual Vacation Liberty School August 13-17, 2012, 6:00 to 8:30 PM nightly.  They are currently looking for actors, teachers, and kitchen helpers (a list may be found here). This was a fun and rewarding experience for those involved last year, and this is another chance to take part.

Contact information may be at the Milton-Freewater TPP blog,  or by visiting their Facebook page.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

July 2012 Meeting

(Click to enlarge)

'Voices of Liberty' Sing the National Anthem


 

Thanks to Breitbart TV, via Mary.

It's official, Obama is worse than Carter


According to a Newsweek/Daily Beast poll of likely voters, Barack Obama now rates behind Jimmy Carter in the pantheon of great presidents.  The poll asked likely voters to list the two best and the two worst presidents the history of the United States.

[............]
Voters’ list of the 10 worst presidents:

33. (tie) Andrew Johnson
33. (tie) Warren G. Harding
33. (tie) Calvin Coolidge
36. (tie) Lyndon B. Johnson
36. (tie) Gerald Ford
38. Herbert Hoover
39. George H.W. Bush
40. Jimmy Carter
41. Richard Nixon
42. Barack Obama
43. George W. Bush
 I think it's unfair that Bush 43 ranks lower than Obama, but that's probably the result of Obama's incessant "Blame Bush" campaign strategy.  On the other hand, Obama's dismal polling is likely an unintended consequence of that strategy.  Although only in part, as the rest of his performance has been dismal as well.

Click here to see the 10 best presidents, and the rest of the results

Fixing Congress


Bringing sanity to Congress requires a complete turnover of the current membership.  But this is one place to start, although I think that the bigger value of this is the airing of dirty laundry.  Clearly, Congress isn't much interested in doing their job the way it should be done.

The Feds do it again


Utah contends that the Bureau of Land Management is breaking the law when making decisions on land use.
The Red Rock Wilderness Bill never passed into law; yet it seems the BLM is going on ahead and managing the ten million acres addressed in Red Rock as if it did, anyway.
"The BLM denies gas drilling leases, or rights-of-way on roads, that should be granted by law. But because they conflict with the Red Rock Wilderness Act, which is not the law, Utah loses out."
Consistent with this administration's general theme of arrogant unaccountability, the enviro-potentates at the BLM have been refusing to disclose their reasoning on land use decisions to the locals.
 Utah loses out, and so do any state which has to deal with the Federal government's arrogance.

Read the whole thing, and pass it on.

How toxic is Obama this election?

This toxic: 

A fresh round of Democrats has announced they will not be attending the party convention in Charlotte.  Most troublingly for President Obama, several of them are from North Carolina, and not only have they decided not to drop in on a convention held in their own state, they’ve refused to endorse Obama for president in 2012.

The latest round of Democrats fleeing from Obama include North Carolina congressmen Mike McIntyre and Larry Kissell, plus candidate Hayden Rogers.  Additionally, news broke just before the Fourth of July holiday that Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas has decided not to attend the party convention, although he does support Obama for president.

There's a great article at the link; please pass it on!

Won't somebody think of the trees?

Because this has got to be the worst reason EVER to cut one down, let alone the millions needed for this:

…And they’re still going strong.

Now that they have the Supreme Court’s go-ahead, federal and state officials are looking to begin the implementation of the PPACA, meaning that it’s time to start adding to the already 13,000 pages-worth of the law’s directives — an endeavor that’s going to cost us all a lot of money and resources. I don’t know how the people actually writing the darn things aren’t daunted, but the thought of this many bureaucrats, trying to administer the minutiae of so many rules and regulations, on behalf of the entire country, has me shakin’ in my boots (h/t Gateway Pundit):
    The Health and Human Services Department “was given a billion dollars implementation money,” Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. “That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation.”

    “Oh boy,” Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. “HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states do, too. There will be new health insurance marketplaces in every state in the country, places you can go online, compare health plans.” …

    “It’s a delegation of extensive authority from Congress to the Department of Health and Human Services and a lot of boards and commissions and bureaus throughout the bureaucracy,” Matt Spalding of the Heritage Foundation said. “We counted about 180 or so.” …

    “They are asking for several hundred new employees,” Dorn said. “You have rules you need to write and you need lawyers, so there are lots of things you need to do when you are standing up a new enterprise.” …
More at the link

ObamaTax really isn't a tax

If you listen to the Obama campaign, anyway:

Really? Last week, the day after the decision, NBC went through the oral-argument transcripts and pulled out all the colloquies where Verrilli had argued for upholding the statute on tax grounds. A taste:
JUSTICE KAGAN: I suppose, though, General, one question is whether the determined efforts of Congress not to refer to this as a tax make a difference. I mean, you’re suggesting we should just look to the practical operation. We shouldn’t look at labels. And that seems right, except that here we have a case in which Congress determinedly said, this is not a tax, and the question is why should that be irrelevant?

GENERAL VERRILLI: I don’t think that that’s a fair characterization of the actions of Congress here, Justice Kagan. On the — December 23rd, a point of constitutional order was called, too, in fact, with respect to this law. The floor sponsor, Senator Baucus, defended it as an exercise of the taxing power. In his response to the point of order, the Senate voted 60 to 39 on that proposition. The legislative history is replete with members of Congress explaining that this law is constitutional as an exercise of the taxing power. It was attacked as a tax by its opponents. So I don’t think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power.

It would be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn’t done so, it seems to me that it’s — not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this Court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power, if it can be upheld on that basis.
There's more at the link, but Obama is (once again) trying to rewrite history.

Margaret Thatcher was right....

....when she said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

The United Nations on Thursday called for a tax on billionaires to help raise more than $400 billion a year for poor countries.

An annual lump sum payment by the super-rich is one of a host of measures including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, currency exchanges or financial transactions proposed in a UN report that accuses wealthy nations of breaking promises to step up aid for the less fortunate.

The annual World Economic and Social Survey says it is critical to find new ways to help the world's poor as pledged cash fails to flow.

The report estimates that the number of people around the globe worth at least $1 billion rose to 1,226 in 2012.

There are an estimated 425 billionaires in the United States, 315 in the Asia-Pacific region, 310 in Europe, 90 in other North and South American countries and 86 in Africa and the Middle East.

Together they own an estimated $4.6 trillion so a one percent tax on their wealth would raise more than $46 billion, according to the report.

"Would this hurt them?" it questioned.
The rest is here.

(non) Leadership

A recap of Obama's (non-) response to the BP oil spill.
 


Thanks to the Coalition Of The Swilling.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

July 4th, 2012


The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
The rest is here

Monday, July 2, 2012

Cartoon Round Up

More below the fold.  Click to enlarge.


Florida nixes ObamaTax


Florida, the state the led the fight against President Obama's health care law, will not comply with the Supreme Court opinion.

Gov. Rick Scott tells Fox News that he and his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, will work tirelessly to make sure the law is repealed. He feels that can be done by electing officials, like Mitt Romney, who have vowed to fight the law before 2014, when most of its provisions kick in.

If that doesn't happen, Scott insists he still won't "implement these exchanges that will increase the cost of health and make Medicaid worse."

Scott claims Medicaid has been growing in Florida at three-and-half times the state's general revenue. He calls the law the "biggest job killer ever" and says Floridians cannot afford the $1.9 billion dollar increase he believes the law will cost.
Read more at FoxNews.

A comparison of two men......

......running for the office of the President of the United States.

First, there's Mitt Romney:



And then there's Barack Obama:

Fund-raising, of course.

On Air Force One.

And frantically........