Resica

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the UN General Assembly is compelling and confronts the lack of integrity of the United Nations.

His speech is worth reading.

Link is here.

“We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of the United States of America”

Who said this?



Muammar Gaddafi, United Nations September 23, 2009

At Least 6 Federal Laws and Regulations Violated By the NEA Conference Callby Ben Shapiro

Yesterday, I posted about the NEA conference call’s clear and obvious violations of the Anti-Lobbying Act (19 U.S. Code §1913), which explicitly provides: “No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation, whether before or after the introduction of any bill, measure or resolution proposing such legislation, law, ratification, policy or appropriation …” The Anti-Lobbying Act, according to government handbooks, prevents government employees from engaging in “substantial ‘grass roots’ lobbying campaigns … expressly urging individuals to contact government officials in support of or opposition to legislation …. Provid[ing] administrative support for lobbing activities of private organizations …”
Violation of this law, in turn, violates 31 U.S. Code §1352, which, if read broadly, bans the use of federal funds for lobbying by the recipients: “funds appropriated by any Act [may not be] expended by the recipient of a Federal contract, grant, loan, or cooperative agreement to pay any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with any Federal action …”
But that’s not all. The conference call also violates the Hatch Act – in particular, 5 U.S. Code §7323(a)(4), which prohibits federal employees from “knowingly solicit[ing] or discourag[ing] the participation in any political activity of any person who – (A) has an application for any compensation, grant, contract, ruling, license, permit, or certificate pending before the employing office of such employee …”
And then there are regulations of the Office of Management and Budget. At least one organization represented on the conference call – Americans for the Arts — has charitable 501(c)(3) status. Under OMB Circular No. A-122, Attachment B, Section 25, federal moneys going to 501(c)3s cannot be used for “(1)Attempts to influence the outcomes of any Federal, State, or local election, referendum, initiative, or similar procedure, through in kind or cash contributions, endorsements, publicity ,or similar activity; … (3) Any attempt to influence: (i) The introduction of Federal or State legislation; or (ii) the enactment or modification of any pending Federal or State legislation through communication with any member or employee of the Congress or State legislature (including efforts to influence State or local officials to engage in similar lobbying activity), or with any Government official or employee in connection with a decision to sign or veto enrolled legislation; (4) Any attempt to influence: (i) The introduction of Federal or State legislation; or (ii) the enactment or modification of any pending Federal or State legislation by preparing, distributing or using publicity or propaganda, or by urging members of the general public or any segment thereof to contribute to or participate in any mass demonstration, march, rally, fundraising drive, lobbying campaign or letter writing or telephone campaign …” The responsibility falls on the federal agencies to implement the OMB circular. If any of the 501(c)3s on the call received federal moneys at any time near the conference call, the federal agency authorities who approved such disbursements violated this circular.
Also, many of the groups on the line were 501(c)(4) organizations, tax-exempt civic organizations who are generally allowed to lobby. Except if they receive federal funds, that is: “An organization described in section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 which engages in lobbying activities shall not be eligible for the receipt of Federal funds constituting an award, grant, or loan.” (P.L. 104-99 §129.) “Lobbying activities” are defined narrowly – they apply to contact with federal officials. But that, of course, is the whole point here: these artists are supposed to provide the groundwork for such contacts, which is barred by law.
It gets even worse. Under 18 U.S.C. §371, it could be found that this call was designed to defraud the United States: “If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” Courts, in fact, have found that action designed to accomplish political activities with federal funds falls under this statute: in 1980, the 8th Circuit held in United States v. Pintar that where individuals conspired to use a federal program “to accomplish political objectives … unrelated to legitimate [agency] business,” they had defrauded “the United States of its right to have programs of an agency financed … by the United States Government … administered, honestly, fairly, without corruption or deceit.”
Undoubtedly, there is more to come here. At the very least, a bevy of federal laws have been violated. Any failure by the Congress of the United States to initiate a full-scale investigation must be considered action designed to enable the misuse of taxpayer funds in violation of federal law.

Benjamin Shapiro Legal Consulting, based in Los Angeles.

Budget chief contradicts Obama on Medicare costs
By ERICA WERNER (AP) – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Congress' chief budget officer is contradicting President Barack Obama's oft-stated claim that seniors wouldn't see their Medicare benefits cut under a health care overhaul.
The head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, told senators Tuesday that seniors in Medicare's managed care plans would see reduced benefits under a bill in the Finance Committee.
The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage plans by more than $100 billion over 10 years.
Elmendorf said the changes would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries.
Critics say the plans are overpaid, while supporters say they work well.
Obama says cuts to Medicare providers won't reduce seniors' benefits.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Via Powerline.com / Missourah.com

Bonus Line:

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” —Margaret Thatcher

'A Republic, if you can keep it...'
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ... Done ... the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven." --George Washington and the Signers



Today, September 17th, 2009, marks the 222nd anniversary of the signing of our Constitution at the Philadelphia (Constitution) Convention in 1787.

The Patriot Post, Sept 17, 2009

Check out the Senators and Representatives who support these people.

Wedding Dance, something special to see!!



Click here sit back and enjoy.



This will make you smile!!!!!

The Examiner

Obama's top five tax fibs in Wednesday evening speech
By: Mark TapscottEditorial Page Editor09/10/09 5:37 PM EDT

This is according to the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR):

1. Middle class tax hikes: “The middle class will realize greater [health] security, not higher taxes.”

FACT: This would be a big departure from the House bill and the Baucus draft. The House bill has four tax increases on families making less than $250,000. President Obama himself endorsed another when he called for an individual mandate with a tax penalty. Earlier this week, he floated the idea of a “soda tax.” The Baucus draft, like the House bill, contains a new tax on over-the-counter medicines purchased with an FSA or HSA

2. Individual mandate tax: “Under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance.”

FACT: What the President is not saying is that the “stick” forcing individuals to do this will be a tax increase. In the House bill, the tax penalty would be 2.5 percent of income. Under the Baucus draft, the tax would range from $750 to $3,800, based on family size and income. Either way, it’s a new tax.

3. Deficit-neutral is not tax-neutral: “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now, or in the future. Period.”

FACT: All “deficit-neutral” means is that taxes will go up at least as much as spending goes up. Under any version of government healthcare, taxes needed to make the plans deficit-neutral would easily exceed $200 billion per year once the plans are fully phased in, according to CBO estimates.

4. Tax code makes healthcare more expensive: “We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages.”

FACT: One of the reasons healthcare inflation is 8 percent a year, while regular inflation is 3 percent a year, is because of the tax code. The tax code prevents most individuals from buying health insurance with pre-tax dollars. Only when insurance is obtained through one’s job or the government is there a tax benefit. There’s also almost no tax benefit to paying for medical expenses out of pocket. These combine to make people think that someone else—not they—are paying for their health care, which drives up the cost.

5. Tax cuts don’t “cost” money: “The plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years&hellipless than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.”

To make an obvious point, taxes are not the government’s money. They are money taken by force of law from the American people. To cut taxes doesn’t “cost” any family anything. In fact, it saves them money. When taxes are raised to increase government spending, it does cost money for families.

The convenient fantasies of President Obama
By: MICHAEL BARONE
Senior Political Analyst
September 9, 2009

The resignation over the Labor Day weekend of White House "green jobs" czar Van Jones tells you some interesting things about the Obama administration. One of them is that a man who proclaimed himself a "communist" in the 1990s and signed 9/11 "truther" petitions suggesting Bush administration complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks was considered fit for a White House appointment. Liberal columnists have been attacking Republicans because some of their voters are "birthers," believers in the absurd charge that President Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. But they have failed to identify any "birther" who occupied a position in the Republican firmament comparable to that of "truther" Van Jones in the Obama administration.
Another interesting thing about Jones is that the administration seems enamored of his "green jobs" concept. There's an understandable political reason. Legislation to restrict carbon emissions that is supported by the administration would undoubtedly kill a large number of jobs by increasing the cost of energy, and so you can see why its advocates might want to argue that there will be a compensating number of "green jobs" created -- at least if the government spends a lot of money on them.
But this sounds like fantasy. If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. In fact big corporations like General Electric are scrambling to position themselves as green companies, gaming legislation and regulations so they can make profits by doing so. Big business is ready to create green jobs -- if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking.
Obama's approach to health care legislation, unless he makes a major course correction in his speech to the joint session of Congress tonight, is of a piece with his hiring of Van Jones. By ceding the task of writing legislation to congressional Democratic leaders and committee chairmen, he has been following a "no enemies to the left" strategy.
By refusing to rule out the government option -- which its architects see as the road to a single-payer government insurance system -- Obama has prevented the emergence of a set of policies that have a chance of passing the Senate. The Senate Republicans in the "gang of six" who have been negotiating with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus are not going to agree on a bill without assurance from the White House that they won't get rolled by hard-left House Democrats in conference committee.
Yesterday Baucus came out with his own plan, which includes a tax on high-value health insurance policies. But this is likely to be rejected by the Left, by labor unions that have negotiated such benefits from employers, and by members of Congress from states like New York, where, because of state policies, almost all health insurance costs that much.
There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1,000,000,000,000 over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.
The list goes on. We are going to improve health care for seniors by cutting $500,000,000,000 from Medicare. We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits.
Most politicians like to promise voters all good things at once. Democrats got in the habit of doing this over the past 14 years when they could not pass legislation by themselves. Van Jones' moment in the White House is over. Exposure of his record in conservative media made him politically unacceptable, even though mainstream outlets like the New York Times ignored the issue entirely.
The Democrats' health insurance bills remain under consideration, and with large majorities in both houses, passage of some bill cannot be ruled out. But August town hall meetings and national polls have put the Democrats on the defensive. No-enemies-to-the-left and convenient fantasies may work in Chicago. They don't work so well when your constituency is the whole United States.

Michael Barone, The Examiner's senior political analyst, can be contacted at mbarone@washingtonexaminer.com. His columns appear Wednesday and Sunday, and his stories and blog posts appear on www.ExaminerPolitics.com ExaminerPolitics.com.

Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care
The president's proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers

By SARAH PALIN
Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.

I couldn't agree more. Let's engage the other side's arguments, and let's allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats' health-care proposals should become governing law.

Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that "no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds." Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.

We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.

How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.

View Full Image
Associated Press .
Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats' proposals "will provide more stability and security to every American."

With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it's a promise Washington can't keep.

Let's talk about specifics. In his Times op-ed, the president argues that the Democrats' proposals "will finally bring skyrocketing health-care costs under control" by "cutting . . . waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies . . . ."

First, ask yourself whether the government that brought us such "waste and inefficiency" and "unwarranted subsidies" in the first place can be believed when it says that this time it will get things right. The nonpartistan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn't think so: Its director, Douglas Elmendorf, told the Senate Budget Committee in July that "in the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

Now look at one way Mr. Obama wants to eliminate inefficiency and waste: He's asked Congress to create an Independent Medicare Advisory Council—an unelected, largely unaccountable group of experts charged with containing Medicare costs. In an interview with the New York Times in April, the president suggested that such a group, working outside of "normal political channels," should guide decisions regarding that "huge driver of cost . . . the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives . . . ."

Given such statements, is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by—dare I say it—death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans. Working through "normal political channels," they made themselves heard, and as a result Congress will likely reject a wrong-headed proposal to authorize end-of-life counseling in this cost-cutting context. But the fact remains that the Democrats' proposals would still empower unelected bureaucrats to make decisions affecting life or death health-care matters. Such government overreaching is what we've come to expect from this administration.

Speaking of government overreaching, how will the Democrats' proposals affect the deficit? The CBO estimates that the current House proposal not only won't reduce the deficit but will actually increase it by $239 billion over 10 years. Only in Washington could a plan that adds hundreds of billions to the deficit be hailed as a cost-cutting measure.

The economic effects won't be limited to abstract deficit numbers; they'll reach the wallets of everyday Americans. Should the Democrats' proposals expand health-care coverage while failing to curb health-care inflation rates, smaller paychecks will result. A new study for Watson Wyatt Worldwide by Steven Nyce and Syl Schieber concludes that if the government expands health-care coverage while health-care inflation continues to rise "the higher costs would drive disposable wages downward across most of the earnings spectrum, although the declines would be steepest for lower-earning workers." Lower wages are the last thing Americans need in these difficult economic times.

Finally, President Obama argues in his op-ed that Democrats' proposals "will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable." Of course consumer protection sounds like a good idea. And it's true that insurance companies can be unaccountable and unresponsive institutions—much like the federal government. That similarity makes this shift in focus seem like nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from the details of the Democrats' proposals—proposals that will increase our deficit, decrease our paychecks, and increase the power of unaccountable government technocrats.

Instead of poll-driven "solutions," let's talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let's give Americans control over their own health care.

Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don't need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats' proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not "provide more stability and security to every American."

We often hear such overblown promises from Washington. With first principles in mind and with the facts in hand, tell them that this time we're not buying it.

Ms. Palin, Sen. John McCain's running mate in the 2008 presidential election, was governor of Alaska from December 2006 to July 2009.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

A powerful video from a young high school student, created and finished in one hour !!

"It gives me great pleasure to pay tribute to the working men and women of America on Labor Day. This occasion brings deserved attention to those who have toiled to build our nation and to shape a prosperous life out of the dreams of early immigrants. Today we recognize the honor and value of all work and the great distinction that flows from a job well done. From those who first carved a nation out of the wilderness to those who helped cross, settle and build this country, the working people have made immeasurable contributions to the advancement of our way of life. Through their spirit, minds, and muscles, America's workers have created a modern industrial giant. They have sustained the traditional values of family, work, and neighborhood while serving as the bulwark of American democracy and lending support to the fundamental tenets of our free enterprise system." --Ronald Reagan

In Memory of Charlie Boone, this was his favorite Hymn.

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