U.S. Agrees To Timetable For UN Gun Ban

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http://www.patriotthoughts.com/2010/01/15/u-s-agrees-to-timetable-for-un-gun-ban/

Thank You, Vytautas

Chicago on the Potomac

You and I have just witnessed one of the most corrupt legislative sessions in American history. Now we have learned that one of the key “experts” pushing ObamaCare was also bought and paid for!

The New York Times has exposed Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics at M.I.T., as having published an article on their Op-Ed page supporting ObamaCare without disclosing that he had an ongoing consulting relationship with HHS.

The Times noted that Professor Gruber had signed a contract obligating him to reveal such relationships. It would have been impossible for him to “forget” his consultancy – he had nearly $400,000 worth of lucrative contracts with HHS at the time!

Firedoglake revealed last Friday that the Obama Administration has paid Gruber more than $780,000 in TAX DOLLARS to make the public case for health care reform!

Jonathan Gruber’s work has been extensively cited by the White House, Members of Congress, and the media continuously since ObamaCare came onto the scene, but NOT ONCE did anyone in the administration disclose he was on their payroll!

The Jonathan Gruber revelation is just the latest public exposure of the graft and dishonesty which has characterized the way the Obama/Pelosi/Reid power axis has advanced ObamaCare. Given what we know, can you imagine what else is under the table?

Just before Christmas, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid systematically bought off every Democrat member of the Senate who could possibly derail his crucial cloture vote. When all the “bribes” were handed out, Reid had the required 60 votes to choke off debate in the middle of the night.

The congressional leadership and the Obama White House arm twisters have literally drug our nation down to the level of a cheap banana republic! They know their popular support is plummeting. They have become desperate and will stop at nothing.

Honest Americans have been nauseated as we have learned:

** Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) received $300 million in extra federal spending for her state in what critics derisively called “The Louisiana Purchase.”

** Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) accepted a deal exempting his state from new Medicaid costs and several other long-term perks. Nelson’s purchase has been dubbed the “Cornhusker Kick Back.”

** Many other bribes and “special provisions” affected the states of Vermont, North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Michigan, Florida, and Connecticut.

But perhaps most painful of all, we have watched a smug Harry Reid justifying his corrupt acts by suggesting it is every senator’s DUTY to get pay-offs for their votes!

“If they don’t have something in it important to them, then it doesn’t speak well of them,” Reid said in a post-cloture interview. So much for the integrity of the United States Senate!

If you wondered why Harry Reid rushed his 2,074-page bill and its 383-page “Manager’s Amendment” through in the middle of the night with just hours to read them, then here’s at least one answer…

On page 1,020, the tyrannical Senate majority insists that no future Congress can repeal or otherwise amend the section on “Independent Medical Advisory Boards.”

You will probably remember that socialists mocked Governor Sarah Palin for calling such independent boards “death panels.” Yet Governor Palin was correct in her assessment – what else would you call boards with the power to grant or deny life-saving care using some pseudo-scientific “cost-benefit” formula?

Carefully hidden away in Reid’s version of ObamaCare is a section that gives these boards far more power and permanence than the Constitution allows to ANY government entity!

Congress has NO authority to force every American to carry insurance coverage,

Congress has NO authority to fine employers whose policies do not have the mandated coverage.

MUST continue to make Congress hear our voice!

Let’s BURY Congress in protest over this endless procession of dirty tricks.

ObamaCare is more vulnerable than ever due to the recent sordid revelations of bribery and scandal.

Americans nationwide are expressing OUTRAGE at this overt manipulation and total lack of integrity. Reid, Pelosi and Obama have proven they will do anything to get this government takeover of our medical industry.

The socialists need to understand that WE HAVE NOT GIVEN UP!

If Reid loses one vote in the Senate or Pelosi three or four in the House, then ObamaCare will not pass!

Below you will find the information you need to contact the leaders of Your America:

To find your Senator, click here.
To find your Representative, click here.

Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Democrat Black Bear

One Man’s Thoughts Has Moved To

http://www.patriotthoughts.com

You can read this article at:

http://www.patriotthoughts.com/2010/01/12/democrat-black-bear/

Thank You, Vytautas

Human Sacrifices ‘On The Rise In Uganda’

One man said he had clients who had captured children and taken their blood and body parts to his shrine, while another confessed to killing at least 70 people including his own son.

A witch-doctor in northern Uganda, said clients came to him in search of wealth.

“They go and capture other people’s children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits,” he said.

“They bring them in small tins and they place these objects under the tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming.”

The witch doctor, who said he was paid 500,000 Ugandan shillings (around £160) for a consultation, denied any direct involvement in murder or incitement to murder, saying his spirits spoke directly to clients.

Uganda’s government claimed human sacrifice was on the increase.

According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity – and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly.

Resentment is Brewing in Tennessee

The tea party movement, which shook up the national political debate in 2009, is setting higher goals for the new year. The anti-government activists aim to influence the 2010 elections, and Nashville could serve as their launching pad.

Tea Party Nation, is holding what it’s billing as a national convention Feb. 4-6 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel to begin organizing for election campaigns around the country. None other than Sarah Palin is headlining the event, with Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Tennessee’s Rep. Marsha Blackburn also among the speakers.

Several groups already have formed political action committees to raise campaign cash. FreedomWorks, which helped organize many of last year’s tea party protests, says it will imitate Obama’s 2008 Internet fundraising efforts.

“We’re all looking to the elections,” says Ben Cunningham, the anti-tax activist who spoke at state Capitol rallies last spring and summer. “People were really frustrated, and the protests were the way they expressed that. Now people are beginning to say, ‘Hey, these rallies are fun but what’s the next step? How do we affect the political process?’ There are a lot of people getting involved.”

The idea is to channel the movement’s energy and outrage to candidates willing to take up the cause.

“At its root, the tea party is really people who have had enough and decided to get involved. It’s really a grassroots thing.” said Ken Marrero, a conservative activist.

Cunningham agrees: “Our strength is our diversity, with so many people empowered to do so many different things.”

“Many of these folks have repudiated party membership,” Marrero points out—so why would they want to join a unified organization under the tea party banner? “They’re looking for performance, not parties or politicians,” he says.

In Tennessee, Republicans are echoing tea party views.

Congressman Zach Wamp, who is running for governor, famously vowed to meet Obama at the state line if he should come to Tennessee to confiscate guns. Wamp and one of his rivals, Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, constantly demand that the federal government recognize Tennessee’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.

Last session, the legislature overwhelmingly adopted Rep. Susan Lynn‘s resolution demanding state sovereignty.

Lawmakers also approved the so-called Firearms Freedom Act, which purports to bar federal regulation of made-in-Tennessee guns and ammunition.

Just before Christmas, Lynn, R-Mt. Juliet, and another state lawmaker, Rep. Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville, asked state Attorney General Bob Cooper to take “appropriate legal action” against the federal government if the health care bill becomes law.

“It is clear by the wording of the legislation itself that not every state would face a similar and equal burden,” they wrote. “We see this as a violation of equal protection of the law, an affront to our sovereignty, and a breach of the U.S. Constitution.”

Ramsey joined the calls for a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of health care legislation.

Last week, Lynn, who is running for the state Senate, upped the ante by saying she might introduce “nullification” legislation purporting to let Tennessee declare null and void any federal law the state deems unconstitutional. She said she would target the pending health care reform legislation as the first federal law to nullify.

Organized or not, the tea party movement is shaping the Tennessee political landscape for this year’s elections.

“If political parties refuse to adopt the principles of lower taxes and less spending,” Marrero says, “no one will have to figure out how to get the tea partiers involved. It’s reached a critical mass, and it’s not going away.”

Harry Reid Says He Was Impressed By Obama’s ‘Light-Skinned’ & Lack Of ‘Negro Dialect’

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http://www.patriotthoughts.com/2010/01/10/harry-reid-says-he-was-impressed-by-obamas-light-skinned-lack-of-negro-dialect/

Thank You, Vytautas

What A Lovely Site

Cornhusker Kickback

‘It’s not a special deal,” Ben Nelson told the New York Times of the special deal that converted him into the 60th Senator for ObamaCare. “It’s a fair deal. Some people said I was getting money for Nebraska. That’s wrong. I was just getting rid of an underfunded federal mandate. There’s nothing sleazy about it. I cracked the door open for other states.”

Under the “Cornhusker Kickback,” the federal government will pay all of Nebraska‘s new Medicaid costs forever, while taxpayers in the other 49 states will see their budgets explode as this safety-net program for the poor is expanded to one out of every five Americans.

“In addition to violating the most basic and universally held notions of what is fair and just,” the AGs wrote last week to the Democratic leadership, the Article I spending clause is limited to “general Welfare.” If Congress claims to be legitimately serving that interest by expanding the joint state-federal Medicaid program, then why is it relieving just one state of a mandate that otherwise applies to all states? In other words, serving the non-general welfare of Nebraska—for no other reason than political expediency—violates a basic Supreme Court check on the “display of arbitrary power” that was established in 1937′s Helvering v. Davis.

Obviously Congress treats different states differently all the time, via earmarks and the like, but in this case there is simply no plausible argument for some kind of “general” benefit. The only state that gains from special treatment for Nebraska is Nebraska—and this actively harms all other states, which will have fewer tax dollars for their own priorities while effectively subsidizing the Cornhusker state.

The 12 Attorneys General are all Republicans, but as it happens their complaints are echoed by the liberal states of New York and California. In a December letter Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger lamented that ObamaCare would impose the “crushing new burden” of as much as $4 billion per year in new Medicaid spending in a state that is already deeply in the red. And in a Christmas Day op-ed in the Buffalo News, New York Governor David A. Paterson protested the almost $1 billion in new costs as well as the “unfairness of the Senate bill” when “New York already sends significantly more money to Washington than it gets back.”

The reality is that national taxpayers have subsidized New York and California’s social services for years because Medicaid’s funding formula rewards higher state spending. That spending helps explain why these two states, plus New Jersey, are in such budget fixes today. But we welcome Mr. Paterson’s discovery that redistributing income via progressive taxation is harmful.

“The final bill must provide equitable federal funding to all states,” Mr. Paterson insisted, and in that sense Mr. Nelson may be right about his opening the political door. As Democrats merge the House and Senate bills, they may extend the 100% Nebraska deal to all states to shut them up, assuming they can rig the budget math. Of course, that gambit would harm either medical providers, given that state Medicaid reimbursement rates are well below even Medicare’s, or Medicaid patients, as more doctors and hospitals simply drop those patients.

We recognize that mere Constitutional arguments won’t deter the political juggernaut that is ObamaCare. But no one should be surprised when Americans wonder if this unprecedented federal intrusion into their lives violates our nation’s founding principles.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580904574638301273467422.html

The Battle To Stop ObamaCare Is Not Over!

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http://www.patriotthoughts.com/2010/01/06/the-battle-to-stop-obamacare-is-not-over/

Thank You, Vytautas

Kurt Westergaard Attacked by Islamist Assassin

Just when Denmark thought the worst was over, Islamic fury has come back to haunt it with an assassination attempt on the artist whose cartoon of the prophet Muhammad as a suicide bomber had an explosive impact four years ago on the Muslim world.

An axe-wielding Somali extremist broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard on Friday night as the 75-year-old cartoonist was looking after Stephanie, his five-year-old granddaughter.

Westergaard, whose little ink drawing of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban sparked riots throughout the Middle East in 2006, has received numerous death threats. He pressed an alarm button to summon police when the attacker entered the house in Aarhus, Denmark’s second city, by breaking a window.

He did not have time to collect the child from the living room before locking himself into a “panic room”, a specially fortified bathroom. He said the assailant had shouted “swear words, really crude words” and shrieked about “blood” and “revenge”, as he smashed the axe in vain against the bathroom door.

“I feared for my grandchild,” he told Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that had commissioned the cartoon. “But she did great. I knew that he wouldn’t do anything to her.” He went on: “It was close, really close. But we did it.”

The attacker, who was also carrying a knife, shouted, “I’ll be back”, before going outside to confront police. He smashed a police car window with the axe and was shot in the hand and a knee when he threw the axe at an officer. He appeared in court on a stretcher yesterday to be charged with the attempted murder of Westergaard and the policeman.

Jakob Scharf, head of Danish intelligence, said yesterday the assailant had close relations to Al-Shabaab, a Somali terror group, as well as to Al-Qaeda leaders in eastern Africa. He had been under surveillance by intelligence, although not in connection with any plot against Westergaard.

The attack, Scharf said, “confirms the terror threat directed at Denmark and against Westergaard in particular”.

Angry protesters in Muslim countries in 2006 burnt embassies and stormed several European buildings in a wave of rioting and flag-burning in which more than 100 people were killed. The reaction had come after a dozen “Muhammad cartoons”, including the famous one by Westergaard, were published in several newspapers.

The drawings, which first appeared in 2005, had been intended to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. This followed the brutal murder in Holland the previous year of Theo van Gogh, the film maker, by a fanatic who resented his depiction of Islam and slit his throat on a street.

Muslims called the cartoons an insult to their religion and, as well as promoting a boycott of Danish goods, some Islamic leaders issued death threats against Westergaard and his publishers.

An affable figure with a wry sense of humour, he has been the intended victim of at least two plots foiled by police. In one, two Tunisians planned to decapitate him in his home.

Two other would-be attackers from Chicago were charged in October with planning to kill Westergaard and Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten who has called the bomb cartoon “a great cultural icon of the 21st century”.

The threats, reminiscent of the fatwa declared against Salman Rushdie, the author whose 1988 novel, The Satanic Verses, was considered blasphemous, have made life miserable for Westergaard and his wife, a retired nursery school teacher. Like Rushdie, they have been obliged to spend long periods away from their home in various “safe houses” whenever the threat against them is considered to be high.

The cartoonist’s telephone went unanswered yesterday: he is expected, for a while at least, to go to ground under police protection.

He puts a brave face on his plight. “At my age you are not so much afraid any more,” he told The Sunday Times last year.

He has no regrets about the cartoon, whose original is locked in a bank vault, defending Denmark’s tradition of democracy and freedom of speech. He seems resigned to a life on the run. “This will go on for the rest of my life. There is no way out,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6973966.ece