Republican Budget: Real Hope to Counter the Audacity of a Dope

Finally, some conservative leadership.  This budget proposal could not do a better job of illustrating the difference between totalitarian left (the two camps which are either devoid of ideas other than taxing and spending to buy votes to stay in power, or their ideas are the destruction of freedom and capitalism which they plan to accomplish by taxing us all into poverty and legislating away our freedoms until they can control us) and the conservative right offering REAL hope.  If you think our nation can survive the poison Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank and others are trying to force us to swallow, you are “stuck on stupid.”  We might be able to survive the bites we’ve already received from these snakes if we’ll just quit letting them bite us any more.  It’s time for the voters in these snake’s districts to have a roundup.

Morning Bell: A Budget We Can Believe In

Posted April 2nd, 2009 at 8.25am in Ongoing Priorities.

There are now two ten-year budget plans being offered in Washington. One budget dumps a staggering $9.6 trillion in new debt onto the American people; the other borrows $3.6 trillion less. One budget creates $63,000 in debt per household; the other creates $23,000 less. One budget raises taxes by $1.4 trillion; the other avoids all tax increases and even simplifies the tax code. One budget does nothing to address the unsustainable costs of Social Security and Medicaid; the other begins to reform these programs. One budget permanently raises federal spending to over 22% of GDP; the other lowers it to pre-recession levels.

When President Barack Obama unveiled his budget he told the American people: “We need to be honest with ourselves about what costs are being racked up, because that’s how we’ll come to grips with the hard choices that lie ahead. And there are some hard choices that lie ahead.” But then his budget went on to avoid all of those hard choices, instead moving to borrow and spend at historic levels. Yesterday, House Budget Committee ranking member Paul Ryan (R-WI) offered a clear alternative that does make hard choices. Heritage analyst Brian Riedl details what Ryan’s budget does:

• Freezes non-defense, non-veterans discretionary spending at its current level for five years.
• Reforms entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are currently growing 8 percent annually.
• Takes back stimulus spending that would be spent in 2010 and beyond, when the recession is expected to be over.
• Places a moratorium on earmarks until the system can be cleaned up.

The most ambitious part of Ryan’s budget is the effort to contain the $43 trillion, 75-year unfunded liability in Social Security and Medicare. Specifically, it would slowly transition Medicare into a premium support program for individuals who are currently below age 55. This would provide seniors with a health plan similar to the one that Members of Congress and federal employees currently enjoy—one based on consumer choice and competition. The alternative budget would also allow future adjustments to Social Security benefits for upper-income seniors.

The alternative budget would also go a long way to restoring American competitiveness by making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent, lowering the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, and simplifying the tax code by allowing individuals the choice of opting into a system with a 10% marginal tax rate on all incomes below $100,000 and 25% rate on incomes above $100,000. Even with all these changes, the alternative budget would bring in revenues averaging just below 18% of GDP, which is near the historical average.

The contrast the two budgets create could not be starker. President Obama’s plan saddles Americans with historic tax increases, runaway spending, and a doubling of the national debt. Ryan’s alternative reins in spending, simplifies taxes, and lessens the debt burden on American families. Which vision do you believe in?

HR 1388 GIVE Act Aimed at “Re-Educating” and Indoctrinating Your Children

I started reading (yes, actually reading) the WHOLE bill last night. I’ve gotten about half way through it so far, and what I’ve seen so far SCARES THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME!

Here are some of things that scare me about what I’ve read so far:

• “Service Learning”: Thinly veiled wording for indoctrination. This follows the model of Soviet Russia with their “re-education camps.” Though the original language of this bill called the re-education/indoctrination centers “camps,” they have since changed the names to “campuses.”
• “Service Corps”: The more I read, the more these look like the basis for the mobs/militias that Obama mentioned in his campaign, but quickly covered up. He said he would form a security force funded as well as the military. Every dictator and despot ruler has had the same thing: a paramilitary force to “persuade” citizens to bend to the will of the despot.
• Backdoor attack on home schooling: The more I read, the more it becomes apparent that Obama intends to make attendance in public, government run schools mandatory. In recent years there have been increasing attacks on those who wish to home school their children in order to teach more conservative values to them. The communists/socialists have known for a long time that if you control the children, you will eventually bypass the parents and control the society.
• Prohibition on any display or exercise of religion: Sect 125 (a)(7) reads thusly…
  

  ‘(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
  (7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

The only way they’ll take my kids to these camps is over my cold, dead body.

I’m uncovering more and more bad stuff in this bill. Please read as much of this, and every other bill, as you have the opportunity to read. Expose what our corrupt politicians are trying to keep in the dark.

Read HR1388 here:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text

________________________________________________________________

Media shield bill a double-edged sword

Responsibility. Media responsibility. That is really what the issue here should be. There was a time when most of the media would take responsibility for what they reported by THOROUGHLY checking their sources, not reporting potentially classified material without checking it with the proper authorities, and not reporting slanderous material without multiple corroborating sources. Today objectivity and responsibility have been replace by ideology driven agenda. So what if I print a lie about someone, as long as it suits my beliefs. Responsibility. Media responsibility. Or lack thereof.

Media shield bill approved by House panel

By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press
March 26, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — Counting on Senate and White House support, lawmakers seeking limited court protection of reporters’ confidential sources renewed an effort Wednesday to win passage of legislation that failed last year.

The bill cleared the House Judiciary Committee on a voice vote and should pass in the House soon. But the test will come later this year in the Senate, where the bill died last year after then-President George W. Bush threatened a veto.

The Bush administration warned the bill would encourage leaks of classified information. (It will also foster slander and character attacks, which the left is so fond of.)

Chief sponsor Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said he’s confident of passage “with the addition of a substantial number of (Senate) Democrats who I believe will be supportive.” Senate supporters could only muster 51 votes last year to get past a filibuster, when 60 were needed.

President Barack Obama was a sponsor of a shield bill as an Illinois senator and presidential candidate.

The House passed a similar bill in 2007 by a 398-21 vote.

The House bill, which would protect confidentiality in most federal court cases, was rewritten this year to meet some of the objections. The revisions enhanced the federal government’s ability to obtain information that is needed to protect national security; and investigate and prevent acts of terrorism.

The bill only allows a court to compel a journalist to reveal confidential sources in these circumstances:

–To prevent an act of terrorism against the United States or its allies, prevent significant harm to national security or to identify a perpetrator of a terrorist act.

–To stop an imminent death or significant bodily harm.

–To identify someone who disclosed a trade secret, health information on individuals, or financial information that is confidential under federal laws.

–To identify, in a criminal investigation, someone who disclosed properly classified information that caused or will cause significant harm to national security.

Even if those requirements are met, the party seeking information must establish that the public interest in compelling disclosure outweighs the public interest in gathering or disseminating information.

Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have shield laws.

Boucher said the law is needed, because a reporter’s source is “only going to pick up the phone … if the reporter can promise confidentiality.”

An opponent of the bill, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said that “Protecting anonymous sources should never be more important than protecting the American people or solving crimes that can help save lives.

“Unfortunately, this bill raises serious law enforcement and national security concerns.”

Smith added that media outlets are lobbying for the bill, even though the media criticizes lobbyists who represent other special interests.

Dozens of news outlets, including The Associated Press, have supported a shield law.

Supporters of media shield legislation have pointed to news reports — based on confidentiality — on mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, clandestine CIA prisons and substandard conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was imprisoned for 85 days in 2005 for refusing to identify the Bush administration officials who spoke with her about CIA employee Valerie Plame. The public revelation of her name led to the perjury and obstructing justice conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was chief of staff to Dick Cheney when he was vice president.