November 30, 2009

List of Taxes Proposed to Pay for Health Care Reform

Filed under: Healthcare,Taxes — Cato Uticensis @ 2:33 PM

The information is starting to trickle out concerning how Congress proposes to pay for health care.

Below is a list of the tax increases Congress and the Administration have proposed to finance health care reform. This list includes taxes in the bill passed by the House of Representatives, the bill the Senate is currently debating, and other taxes mentioned as a possible way to pay for health care reform.

•    An income surtax on taxpayers earning more than $500,000 a year,

•    An excise tax on high-cost "Cadillac" health insurance plans that cost more than $8,500 a year for individuals or $21,000 for families,

•    An excise tax on medical devices such as wheelchairs, breast pumps, and syringes used by diabetics for insulin injections,

•    A cap on the exclusion of employer-provided health insurance without offsetting tax cuts,

•    A limit on itemized deductions for taxpayers with a top income tax rate greater than 28 percent,

•    A windfall profits tax on health insurance companies,

•    A value-added tax, which would tax the value added to a product at each stage of production,

•    An increase in the Medicare portion of the payroll tax to 3.4 percent for incomes great than $200,000 a year ($250,000 for married filers),

•    An excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages including non-diet soda and sports drinks,

•    Higher taxes on alcoholic beverages including beer, wine, and spirits,

•    A tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage of up to 2.5 percent of their adjusted gross income,

•    A limit on contributions to health savings accounts,

•    An 8 percent tax on all wages paid by employers that do not provide their employees health insurance that satisfies the requirements defined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services,

•    A limit on contributions to flexible spending arrangements,

•    Elimination of the deduction for expenses associated with Medicare Part D subsidies,

•    An increase in taxes on international businesses,

•    Elimination of the tax credits paper companies take for biofuels they create in their production process–the so-called "Black Liquor credit,"

•    Fees on insured and self-insured health plans,

•    A limit or repeal of the itemized deduction for medical expenses,

•    A limit on the Qualified Medical Expense definition,

•    An increase in the payroll taxes on students,

•    An extension of the Medicare payroll tax to all state and local government employees,

•    An increase in taxes on hospitals,

•    An increase in the estate tax,

•    Increased efforts to close the mythical "tax gap,"

•    A 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and similar procedures such as Botox treatments, tummy tucks, and face lifts,

•    A tax on drug companies,

•    An increase in the corporate tax on providers of health insurance, and

•    A $500,000 deduction limitation for the compensation paid by health insurance companies to their officers, employees, and directors.

More to Come

The full list of taxes proposed to pay for health care reform is provided because taxes currently left out of the Senate or House bills could reappear at any point. For instance, the tax on cosmetic surgery listed above (sometimes called the "Botox tax") was written off long ago as a laughable way to pay for health care reform. Nevertheless, it somehow found its way into the current version of the Senate bill.

As the legislative process continues and Congress’s desperation to pass a bill increases, it could propose even more tax hikes to pay for its massive expansion of government size and power. The Heritage Foundation will update this list with each new proposal.

No Time for Tax Hikes

Raising taxes at any time is economically harmful, but doing so during a severe recession is reckless. The higher taxes in the health care plans would depress economic activity and delay recovery. When the recovery does finally come, it would be weaker than it would have been without all the tax increases. In the long run, economic growth would remain lower because of these damaging tax increases.

Instead of rushing through a badly conceived health care bill and raising taxes to pay for it, Congress should focus first on economic recovery by increasing the incentives to work, save, invest, and take on new economic risk. Congress can do so by dropping all talk of tax increases and extending permanently the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. That is the only way to pull the economy out of the "Great Recession" and get unemployed Americans back to work.

Courtesy of Curtis Dubay

Don’t know about you, but can we talk tax revolt along the lines of, say “Boston Tea Party”!



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Harold B. Estes – American War Hero’s Letter to Barak Obama

Filed under: Patriotism — Cato Uticensis @ 10:43 AM

Harold Estes is esteemed and a much honored WW II vet and well known in Hawaii for his seventy-plus years of service to patriotic organizations and causes all over the country. A modest man without a political bone in his body, Mr. Estes has never spoken out before about a government official, until now.

He dictated this letter to a friend, signed it and mailed it to Barak Obama.

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can’t figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

  • ” We’re no longer a Christian nation”
  • ” America is arrogant” – (Your wife even announced to the world,”America is mean-spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I’d say shame on the both of you but I don’t think you like America nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British ? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War ? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers,husbands,and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around because we stand for freedom.

I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man. Shape up and start acting like an American.If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue .You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight ? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.
Sincerely,

Harold B. Estes

McAlpin , FL

Thank you Mr. Estes for your honesty and your willingness to speak your mind. I thank you for your service for your country. It is men and women like yourself who fill my heart with gratitude!



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November 28, 2009

Obama’s Personal Physician Friend is Marxist

Filed under: Barack Obama — Cato Uticensis @ 6:40 PM

Wouldn’t you know it. President Obama’s longtime friend and neighbor is a Marxist!

Barack Obama and Quentin Young

New Zeal reported this week on Barack Obama’s Marxist neighbor and doctor friend who taught him about the single-payer health care system.

The push to socialize US Heathcare came, not from from the “people”, but from small clique of Marxists, led by a man with close persional ties to president Barack Obama.

This group’s goal is fully socialized, government run “single payer” healthcare-as long promoted through Congressman John Conyers’ National Health Insurance Act, or HR 676.

The leader of this Marxist clique is Quentin Young-a retired Chicago physician, a life long Marxist activist and long time friend and political ally of Barack Obama.

According to radical journalist John Nichols writing in The Progressive;

Obama…learned about single-payer health care from his old friend and neighbor Dr. Quentin Young, the longtime coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Quentin Young told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, that while an Illinois State senator, Obama was a strong supporter of “single payer.”

Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion…. ”

So then, who exactly is Dr. Quentin Young? According to New Zeal:

Quentin Young is one of America’s most committed socialists, beginning with his time in the Young Communist League in late 1930s Chicago.

After WW2, into the mid 1970s, Young was closely associated with the Communist Party and was accused of belonging to the Bethune Club (a communist doctor’s club) by a US Congressional Committee investigating the riots at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

There is so much more to this. In the end this does not surprise me nor should it surprise you! With each passing day we’re learning the truth about Barak Obama!
H/T Gateway Pundit



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Value Added Tax (VAT) Uncovered in Senate Health Care Bill

Filed under: Healthcare — Cato Uticensis @ 2:04 PM

With spending at nearly 25 percent of GDP and headed for more than 40 percent of national output, according to the liberal Progressive Policy Institute, how will the Democrats pay for it all?

The evidence points toward the way big-government, slow-growth Europe does it: the value added tax.

Working as a sales tax that you don’t get to see on your receipt, the VAT has proven to be a brutally efficient money machine in other countries. Maybe that’s why Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi last month told Charlie Rose that a VAT was “on the table” as a solution to America’s fiscal liabilities.

But it’s not just “on the table.” It’s in the Senate’s health reform bill soon to be voted on.

The Senate bill’s “fee” on medical devices operates much like a VAT, and could end up being the model for future adoption of an unprecedented VAT on all goods and services in the United States.

Deep into the 2,074-page bill, on page 2,020, is “SEC. 9009,” the “Imposition of Annual Fee on Medical Device Manufacturers and Importers.” It orders that “Each covered entity engaged in the business of manufacturing or importing medical devices shall pay to the [Treasury] Secretary not later than the annual payment date of each calendar year beginning after 2009 a fee in an amount determined under subsection (b).”

The amount of tax would be based on “gross receipts from medical device sales.” Treasury bureaucrats would have the formidable power of “identification of medical devices” and the new tax would be retroactive, applying to “any medical device sales after December 31, 2008.”

Bruce Bartlett, deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury under former President George H.W. Bush, has called a VAT perhaps “the least bad way of financing needed tax reforms and the massive growth of federal health care spending that neither the [George W. Bush] White House nor Congress shows any interest in restraining.”

But in pushing for his tax reform program in 1985, President Ronald Reagan warned that “a value-added tax actually gives a government a chance to blindfold the people and grow in stature and size.”

For President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress, a VAT may be just the blindfold needed for the Europeanization of the U.S. economy – massive government, high unemployment and a lower quality of life: a very new lifestyle for Americans.

Via Newsmax

November 25, 2009

Obama’s One Big Accomplishment: Shatters Spending Record for First-Year Presidents

Filed under: Economy,National Debt — Cato Uticensis @ 1:00 PM

Barak Hussein Obama hasn’t accomplished much in foreign policy and economic policy, but the one thing he has accomplished in his first year; he has shattered the spending record for first-year presidents. Quite an accomplishment and I’m sure it’s one he’s very proud of!

President Obama has shattered the budget record for first-year presidents — spending nearly double what his predecessor did when he came into office and far exceeding the first-year tabs for any other U.S. president in history.

In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion — $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. That fiscal year covered the last three-and-a-half months of George W. Bush’s term and the first eight-and-a-half months of Obama’s.

H/T Fox News via Lonely Conservative

Way to go Mr. President! I have come to the conclusion that YOU and the rest of goons in Washington are part of the problem and not the solution.



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A New Republican Platform

Filed under: Politics — Cato Uticensis @ 10:50 AM

Political parties in general, and the Republican party in particular, lack a written charter which defines the principles of that party and thus establishes the bounds within which Party leaders must operate. This is an attempt to create such a charter for the Republican Party.

Those individuals who understand and embrace the Constitution of the United States are overwhelmingly Republican. They understand the Constitution is the finest piece of legislation ever penned by man precisely because it limits the powers of government in order that government may protect the rights of individuals.

The objective of this charter is to define the principles embraced by the Republican Party. These principles are based on the Constitution and the fundamental concept of individual rights.

It bears mentioning that any party that lacks a charter defining principles is inherently unprincipled; if it does not define itself or those things for which it stands, it is free to morph over time into something diametrically opposed to what it was at its inception. This implies party leaders of all stripes are less interested in adhering to an ideological principle and more interested in acquiring or maintaining power. This is anathema to a free people.

Creating a charter anchors a party. A party is no longer free to change or go where the political currents take it. This is the objective of our efforts.

The Charter of the Republican Party
November 13, 2009


“A political party cannot be all things to all people. It must represent certain fundamental beliefs which must not be compromised to political expediency, or simply to swell its numbers.” – Ronald Reagan, 1975

WHEREAS the leaders of the Republican Party and many in the Republican Party have adopted values and implemented policies anathema to the principles and values upon which our great nation was founded, it has become necessary to codify the conservative tenets and principles that define the Republican Party. These tenets and principles must be adhered to by all candidates, incumbents and newcomers, to become (or remain) a member of, garner the electoral support of, and receive monetary support from the Republican Party and its constituency.

Be it known that We, the People, of The United States of America, do hereby propose the following Republican Party Charter:

WHEREAS Republicans believe in limited government, individual freedom and personal responsibility;

WHEREAS government has neither money nor power not derived from the consent of the people;

WHEREAS people have the right to keep the fruits of their labor;

WHEREAS elected officials must uphold the U. S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Republican Party endorses and requires the following principles be strictly adhered to in ideology and actions:

RESPONSIBILITIES
The leaders of the Republican Party, understanding and acknowledging the rights of individuals and limitations of government, hereby swear to uphold and defend the rights of the Individual.

Society requires honest and able leadership.

Perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power.

Perceives the need for strict Constitutional restraints upon power.

Favors reasoned and temperate progress.

Every congressman, senator, President, and Supreme Court justice is required to obey the U.S. Constitution.

Every congressman, senator, President, and Supreme Court justice is required to read the U.S. Constitution.

Preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Oppose the nationalization of private industry, commerce, or banking, and oppose partial ownership by the government in any private industry or company.

RIGHTS
*Source: Declaration of Independence and the 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th & 11th Amendment, and Article 1 Section 8.
Fisher Ames, Massachusetts Representative wrote:

” The RIGHTS of conscience, of BEARING ARMS, of CHANGING THE GOVERNMENT, are declared to be INHERENT IN THE PEOPLE.”

The Republican Party acknowledges the fundamental, natural rights of all individuals, understands that violating those rights is a usurpation of power indistinguishable from that of a tyrant, and pledges never to support legislation or other governmental devices that impinge on the individual rights of the people of the United States.

Rights are principles that define man’s freedom of action within society, and rights are not gifts from government, but given to us by our Creator. Rights are necessitated by man’s nature as rational beings; rights merely exist, apart from any government, and are unalienable.

A society is free when it secures individuals’ fundamental rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees unalienable rights to each individual and needs to be voraciously defended and protected at all times.

The right to life is the source of all rights

Republican Party regards individuals as an end in themselves, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of all individuals.

The Republican Party holds that an individual’s life is his or hers by right, that a right is the property of an individual.

The only purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.
*Per Article 1 section 8, Article 4 Section 4.

A right is that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission.

One’s freedom is absolute.

Since individuals have unalienable rights, this means that the same rights are held by all individuals at all times. Therefore, the rights of one cannot and must not violate the rights of another.

The right to property means that a man has the right to take the economic actions necessary to earn property, to use it and to dispose of it

The government should not take private property without just compensation.

All unconstitutional regulation of private property must be repealed.

All laws, which give license to violate the Bill of Rights, must be repealed.

Taking away people’s liberties in the name of security is not patriotic.

Capitalism is a social and economic system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned

It is acknowledged that Capitalism’s ruling principle is justice: the fruits of an individual’s labor belong to that individual.
*Per The 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th & 11th Amendments.

VALUES
*Source: Article 1 Section 8 and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th Amendments.
The Republican Party believes that there exists an enduring moral order. That order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent.

The ruin of great nations throughout recorded history shows us the pit into which fall societies that mistake clever self-interest, or ingenious social controls, for pleasing alternatives to an traditional moral order.

Adheres to custom, convention, and continuity. It is old custom that enables people to live together peaceably.

Does not put his trust in mere benevolence. Constitutional restrictions, political checks and balances, adequate enforcement of the laws, the old intricate web of restraints upon will and appetite – these the conservative approves as instruments of freedom and order.

The first rule of government should be to govern strictly within and by the Constitution AND “do no harm.”

Restore the parental right to be responsible in educating children.

Protect the institution of marriage.

GOVERNMENT POWERS
*Source: Article 1 Section 8, Article 6 Clause 2 & the 5th, 9th, 10th and 11th Amendments.
In order for individuals to benefit from living together, society must respect individual rights. The sole purpose of government is to protect these rights.

A government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is antithetical to the Republican Party.

The Republican Party understands that jobs, food, clothing, recreation, homes, medical care, education, etc., do not grow in nature. These are goods and services produced by individuals. Because these are produced by individuals, it is outside the scope of government to presume to be able to provide the products of the work of some individuals to other individuals. To do so would be a violation of the fundamental, natural rights of those who provide those goods and services.
*Per Article 1 Section 8, Article 6 Clause 2 and the 5th 9th, 10 & 11th Amendments.

The power of the federal government should be limited, as per the tenth amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

The US Government must answer only to the Constitution and the citizens protected by it.
*Per Article 6 Clause 2.

The government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the Constitution and necessary for the protection of each citizen’s individual rights against force and fraud.
*Per the 9th, 10th and 11th Amendments.

It is the job of government to protect and secure God-given rights, not use its power to take those rights away.

The most basic function of government is to protect life.

Support all enumerated Constitutional rights.

Government is bound and limited by law in every official act.
*Per Article 6 Clause 2.

A government official may do nothing except that which is legally mandated.

The United States shall not be answerable to any governing body outside the United States for its trade, foreign or military policy.

Perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power.
*Per Article 6 Clause 2 and the 9th, 10th and 11th Amendments.

Three “separate but equal” branches of government that are supposed to hold each other in check and balance.

The Federal Government must return to its constitutionally enumerated powers and restore our inalienable rights.

The most basic function of government is to protect life.

Support all enumerated Constitutional rights.

Support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
*Per Article 3 Section 3 and Article 4 Section 4.

LAWS/LEGISLATION
Republicans are guided by their principle of prudence.

The rule of law is critical to maintaining liberty.

Laws must be objective in both form and substance.

Objective laws are laws that confine government to its one legitimate function: protecting individual rights.

The law must forbid only such private conduct as violates the individual rights of others.

When law is clear and precise, it leaves no room for the State to exercise arbitrary power through unpredictable, subjective decisions.

Any proposed law, which cannot be formulated into an objective law, cannot be made the subject of legislation.

Republican legislators will always cite the specific Article and Section of the Constitution that authorizes any bills they put forth.

No bill will be submitted that does not strictly adhere to the Constitution and keep with the principle of guarding individual rights.

Republican legislators will work to repeal laws that contravene the Constitution and/or the principle that government must always guard individual rights.

All people, regardless of position in the public or private sector, should be held equally accountable under the law.

Supreme Court and other judges should be appointed based on their determination to accurately interpret, not amend, the Constitution. Judges have *no* authority to make new law.

All laws, which give license to violate the Bill of Rights, must be repealed.

Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long. run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.

See politicians are forced to abide by the same laws they make everyone else submit to.

Congress or the White House or any sovereign State is not required to submit to unconstitutional Supreme Court rulings.

Congressmen and senators are required to actually read a bill before passing it into law.

Cutting taxes and decreasing regulation are necessary to procuring a healthy Republic and guarding the rights of the individual.

Must not reward people in America illegally.
*Per Article 4 Section 4.

Enforce the laws that are already on the books to deal with illegal immigration.

Republicans in the Executive Branch will strictly adhere to Article IV Section 4 of the Constitution which ensures protection of each state from invasion by a foreign force. To include, but not limited to: fixing our immigration system by first securing our borders, fixing the visa and entry process and opposing amnesty in any reform.

JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS
Judges, who will respect the rule of law, strictly interpret our Constitution and not legislate from the bench.
* Per Article 1 Section 8, Article 3 section 3, Article 4 section 4, Article 6 Clause 2, and the 5th, 9th, 10th and 11th Amendments.

BUDGET
Honest accounting dictates that all federal expenditures should be on budget.
*As solely defined and restricted by Article 1 Section 8.

Each budget should be derived based upon the justification for and needs of each program, with no program being either budgeted for or increased automatically. No program, item or property can be funded except as it is found clearly defined in Article 1 Section 8.

The federal government should live within its means.

Promote fiscal responsibility.

A balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto that will help control the excessive and wasteful spending.

The Federal Reserve is held accountable and restore transparency to our monetary system and must be abolished as soon as possible and the coining and regulating of currency be restored to Congress.
*Per Article 1 Section 8.

TAXES
*Article 1 section 8 and the 5th, 9th, 10 and 11th Amendments.
There should be a national debate discussing various alternative means of taxation including but not limited to a single flat income tax, repealing the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax, and reducing spending to the point where the income tax can be repealed without the need to replace it with a national sales tax or any other form of taxation.

I.R.S. and the Federal Reserve should be abolished.

Higher taxes and more regulations destroy jobs.

Support flatter tax rates with a simplified tax code.

NO company should ever be treated favorably with taxpayer dollars.

Not to vote for tax increases.

Our tax code should encourage people to buy basic health insurance coverage, not mandate.

Personal Liberty and Property are God-given Rights that no law can rightly transgress.

DEFENSE/NATIONAL SECURITY
*Source: Article 4 Section 4 and Article 1 Section 8.

Defending our Country is the most important function of the federal government. When we are threatened, it is the obligation of our representatives to unleash the full arsenal of power that is granted by and derived from free men and women.

U. S. military should be deployed only where there is a clear threat to vital U. S. interests and only with the consent of the U. S. Congress.

Before the United States invades and occupies another country, Congress must first declare war.

U. S military personnel should always, and only, be under U. S. command.

U.S. troops should never serve under foreign commanders or wear the uniform or insignia of the United Nations, and that they must never submit to illegal orders, such as turning their weapons against American citizens, or confiscating the guns of U.S. citizens.

U.S. troops are not the world’s policemen; their purpose is only to defend American lives and property.

Our country must have the strongest defensive capabilities in the world.

American military action is guided first and foremost by the country’s national interest.

Every nation has a sovereign right to secure its borders against the threat of drug, weapon, and human smuggling.

A border fence along our southern border.

Enforce the laws that are already on the books to deal with illegal immigration.

ENERGY

*Source: Article 1 Section 8, and the 5th, 9th, 10th and 11th Amendments.
Seek to grow our economy AND reduce greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging the development of modern nuclear power.

Every dollar of oil we pump for ourselves is another dollar available for domestic investment and, potentially, another dollar kept out of the hands of petro-dictatorships or petro-terrorism.

We must aggressively expand energy production in our country, including stepping up offshore drilling and looking to nuclear power.

Stand for policies that make us more energy efficient, less reliant on foreign sources of oil, create jobs and ease the burden on family budgets.

EDUCATION
The Federal Government has exceeded its power by placing the control of Education under federal agencies. Education is the jurisdiction of each individual State. And as such, the federal agencies, i.e. NEA, need to be abolished and education control returned to the States under the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Parents have the right to spend their money on the school or method of schooling they deem appropriate for their children.

Parents have a right to home school their children.

HEALTHCARE
*Article 1 Section 8.
Our healthcare system can be improved by applying free-market principles.

Free market health care alternatives, such as medical savings accounts, should be available to everyone, including senior citizens.

Our tax code should encourage people to buy basic health insurance coverage, not mandate it.

Allow interstate competition for insurance coverage.

Encourage tort reform.

WELFARE
All able-bodied Americans have the responsibility to support themselves and their families.

FIRST AMENDMENT
“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.”

ALL First Amendment Rights are for everybody, including Christians.

The federal government had no authority to tell a citizen that he cannot pray or display publicly his religious symbolism – to include Christianity.

There is nothing unconstitutional about the public acknowledgement of God and our Christian heritage.

Does NOT forbid the display, expression or celebration of Religion/Christianity on/in Public grounds or buildings.

SECOND AMENDMENT
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The U.S. Constitution confers an individual right to keep and bear arms.

The Bill of Rights’ Second Amendment is clear and is a cornerstone of our democracy.

The right of citizens to defend themselves by bearing arms is a fundamental human right that should be protected.”

Offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and enables the people to resist and triumph over them.

The Republican Party understands that the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights acknowledges the fundamental, natural right of individuals to protect their lives, property, wealth and liberty by use of force, if necessary, against a belligerent government or other force, foreign or domestic.

The Republican Party acknowledges that any effort to thwart individuals’ freedom to own or carry arms is in direct violation of the Constitution and directly implies a desire to encourage or bring about a totalitarian regime and to deny individuals, through use of force, their natural rights.

NINTH AMENDMENT

“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall NOT be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the People.”

The Rights and Freedoms with their attendant responsibilities are NOT enumerated in every detail in The Constitution. Our Founders meant and intended that whatever was NOT spelled out plainly that it fell to THE PEOPLE. Thus maximizing our rights and freedoms. It NEVER was meant for the Government, Local, State or Federal, to become our “overbearing nanny”! Our Founders NEVER meant that Government would EVER be a “security blanket” for ANYONE! THAT was for the individuals, Families, Churches, Charities…NOT by FORCE of Government TAXATION and REGULATION! Our Founders put the HIGHEST emphasis and HIGHEST regard on INDIVIDUAL Freedom/Rights, and only believed Government was meant to protect the law-abiding from the NON-law-abiding.

SOVEREIGNTY and the Tenth Amendment
“The powers NOT delegated to the United States by The Constitution, NOR prohibited by it to The STATES, are RESERVED TO The STATES respectively, OR to The PEOPLE.”

The federal government has no authority to be involved in education or law enforcement, or in any other issue that the Tenth Amendment reserves to the States, or to the People.

The United States should get out of the United Nations and get the United Nations out of the United States.

U.S. troops should never serve under foreign commanders or wear the uniform or insignia of the United Nations, and that they must never submit to illegal orders, such as turning their weapons against American citizens, or confiscating the guns of U.S. citizens.

Oppose America’s merger with any kind of regional, hemispheric, or international government.

REVOCATION OF AFFILIATION

As a defined and distinct group with a charter of principles, the Republican Party may, at any time, revoke the Republican Party affiliation of any elected or appointed official who is acting against the principles defined above. Any elected or appointed official who supports legislation or other acts that run against the principles above must have their party affiliation revoked immediately.

*REFERENCES

Constitution of The United States

Bill of Rights – Amendments 1 – 10

Amendments 11-27

Declaration of Independence

November 20, 2009

Climategate: the Death of Global Warming

Filed under: Climate Change,Corruption — Cato Uticensis @ 4:33 PM

My oh my! Did you hear the news about the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit had its emails hacked. The blog Watts Up With That broke the story and published some of the emails.

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next
time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat
the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority. ….

This piece of news follows the exposure of Al Gores Photoshop Fraud.

Maybe now Barbara Boxer can get a life (out of the Senate) now. I enjoyed Senator Inhofe’s remark to Senator Boxer, it made my day.



Promoting Limited Government,Constitutional Rights and Personal Responsibility

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Arianna Huffington:Glenn Beck Should Be Excluded from Constitutionally Protected Freedom of Speech

Filed under: Glenn Beck — Cato Uticensis @ 1:04 PM

Arianna Huffington argues that Glenn Beck should be excluded from Constitutionally protected freedom of speech.

The Liberal left-wing Progressives love “free speech” except when it comes to “conservative free speech”. Liberals want to shut Glenn Beck up because he’s effective and making a difference! The same constitution which allows free speech for the liberal left also provides the freedom for conservatives as well.

I would advise the liberal left and the rest of Progressives, if you want shut Glenn Beck up then prove him wrong! Refute what he says with concrete facts!

Huffington appeared on MSNBC’s Nov. 19 “Countdown” to discuss a report by the Anti-Defamation League that alleges Fox News host Glenn Beck is “the most important mainstream media figure who has repeatedly helped to stoke fires of anti-government anger” and therefore endangering society.

“It would be nice to think of Glenn Beck just as a joke, as fodder for this show and the “Daily Show” and others that point out how stupid some of this stuff is,” “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann said. “But this report, you know, suggests something else, this is – fear-monger-in-chief term is frightening.”

Jeff Poor



Promoting Limited Government,Constitutional Rights and Personal Responsibility

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November 19, 2009

Al Gore’s Photoshop Fraud

Filed under: Climate Change,Corruption — Cato Uticensis @ 4:55 PM

It came to my attention today that Igor (Al Gore) has resorted to fraud and trickery to scare the masses. Yes, Igor used Photoshop to doctor photo evidence failing to match up to the doomsday proclamations, in order to make a CO2-choked earth look scary enough to sell his cap and trade scam.

With the increasingly discredited notion of man-made global warming crashing and burning on a daily basis, climate alarmists are being forced to accelerate their fearmongering to unprecedented levels. With the evidence failing to match up to the doomsday proclamations, Al Gore has turned to photoshop in order to make a CO2-choked earth look scary enough to sell his cap and trade scam.

The latest example of climate cult fakery comes in the form of the front cover of Al Gore’s new book, Our Choice; A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis.

Shortly after the devastation of Katrina, Al Gore was busy making a correlation between hurricanes and global warming in an effort to drive home his claim that higher global CO2 emissions cause an increase in extreme weather events. The cover art for Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, features an image of a hurricane rising out of a smoke stack.

Seemingly underwhelmed that there have been no major hurricanes since Katrina, along with the fact that global hurricane activity is now at a thirty year low, Gore came up with an ingenious method of solving the problem of the lack of scary depictions of frightening hurricanes to display on his book – simply airbrush them in!

Ryan Maue, hurricane expert from the University of Florida writes:

Original Image Before Using Photoshop


The cover opens and closes half and half — so you only see one hurricane…as in the press release photo or the one on Amazon.

But this is the real picture sequence from the book which I looked at Borders today and took cell-phone pictures, original (before the retouching by some “artist”) Note all of the Arctic ice and the size of the Florida Peninsula…

And the final product:

Same Image After Using Photoshop


A midget Southern Hemisphere cyclone is off the coast of Florida, another hurricane is sitting on the equator off the coast of Peru — and the Arctic Ice is gone (perhaps it is summer) and the Florida Peninsula is half gone

There are other differences I am sure you can find — but the hurricanes are just nonsense…

Prison Planet

Just another piece of evidence showing the global warming myth.



Promoting Limited Government,Constitutional Rights and Personal Responsibility

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November 18, 2009

Independent Voters Bolting Has Democrats Alarmed

Filed under: Politics — Cato Uticensis @ 4:23 PM

This is really no surprise as Democrats have once again over-reached. The American people wanted change (from politics as usual), not the total transformation which we’re seeing. I would dare say that your “mom and pop” democrats are bolting from a party, now dominated by socialist and marxist ideologues.

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.

Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.

Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama’s agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

A Gallup Poll released last week offered a disturbing glimpse about the state of play: just 14 percent of independents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest figure all year. In just the past few days alone, surveys have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republicans among independent voters by double-digit margins in competitive statewide contests in places as varied as Connecticut, Ohio and Iowa.

Obama’s own popularity among independents has fallen significantly, too. A CBS News poll Tuesday showed the president’s approval rating among unaligned voters falling to 45 percent — down from 63 percent in April.

Politico

This should serve as a wake up call for the Republican Party as well. You want to capture the independent voter? Quit trying to be like the Democrats and stop endorsing candidates like Dede Scozzafava! When Republicans are like Democrats they lose, when Republicans adhere to conservatism, they win!



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