28. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission:

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama told Americans the bipartisan deficit commission he will appoint won’t just be “one of those Washington gimmicks.” Left unspoken in that assurance was the fact that the commission won’t have any teeth.

Obama confronted some tough realities in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, chief among them that Americans are continuing to lose their health insurance as Congress struggles to pass an overhaul.

Yet some of his ideas for moving ahead skirted the complex political circumstances standing in his way.

A look at some of Obama’s claims and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: “Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t.”

THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit — and that’s if the president can persuade Congress to go along.
Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. “The problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel,” he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain’s.

OBAMA: “I’ve called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can’t be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans.”

THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted — a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.

OBAMA: Discussing his health care initiative, he said, “Our approach would preserve the right of Americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan.”

THE FACTS: The Democratic legislation now hanging in limbo on Capitol Hill aims to keep people with employer-sponsored coverage — the majority of Americans under age 65 — in the plans they already have. But Obama can’t guarantee people won’t see higher rates or fewer benefits in their existing plans. Because of elements such as new taxes on insurance companies, insurers could change what they offer or how much it costs. Moreover, Democrats have proposed a series of changes to the Medicare program for people 65 and older that would certainly pinch benefits enjoyed by some seniors. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted cuts for those enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans.

OBAMA: The president issued a populist broadside against lobbyists, saying they have “outsized influence” over the government. He said his administration has “excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs.” He also said it’s time to “require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress” and “to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office.”

THE FACTS: Obama has limited the hiring of lobbyists for administration jobs, but the ban isn’t absolute; seven waivers from the ban have been granted to White House officials alone. Getting lobbyists to report every contact they make with the federal government would be difficult at best; Congress would have to change the law, and that’s unlikely to happen. And lobbyists already are subject to strict limits on political giving. Just like every other American, they’re limited to giving $2,400 per election to federal candidates, with an overall ceiling of $115,500 every two years.

OBAMA: “Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed. … And we are on track to add another one and a half million jobs to this total by the end of the year.”

THE FACTS: The success of the Obama-pushed economic stimulus that Congress approved early last year has been an ongoing point of contention. In December, the administration reported that recipients of direct assistance from the government created or saved about 650,000 jobs. The number was based on self-reporting by recipients and some of the calculations were shown to be in error.
The Congressional Budget Office has been much more guarded than Obama in characterizing the success of the stimulus plan. In November, it reported that the stimulus increased the number of people employed by between 600,000 and 1.6 million “compared with what those values would have been otherwise.” It said the ranges “reflect the uncertainty of such estimates.” And it added, “It is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.”

OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress “to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve.”

THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN “so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it’s acted upon.

OBAMA: “The United States and Russia are completing negotiations on the farthest-reaching arms control treaty in nearly two decades.”

THE FACTS: Despite insisting early last year that they would complete the negotiations in time to avoid expiration of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in early December, the U.S. and Russia failed to do so. And while officials say they think a deal on a new treaty is within reach, there has been no breakthrough. A new round of talks is set to start Monday. One important sticking point: disagreement over including missile defense issues in a new accord. If completed, the new deal may arguably be the farthest-reaching arms control treaty since the original 1991 agreement. An interim deal reached in 2002 did not include its own rules on verifying nuclear reductions.

OBAMA: Drawing on classified information, he claimed more success than his predecessor at killing terrorists: “And in the last year, hundreds of al-Qaida’s fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed — far more than in 2008.”
THE FACTS: It is an impossible claim to verify. Neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published enemy body counts, particularly those targeted by armed drones in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The pace of drone attacks has increased dramatically in the last 18 months, according to congressional officials briefed on the secret program.

FACT CHECK: Obama and a toothless commission - Yahoo! News

Note:  President Omaba said, “I’ve called for a bipartisan fiscal commission.” …….uh, Mr. President, we already have a bipartisan commission with 535 members to handle budgetary decisions — it’s called Congress.

Posted in Corruption And Lies, President Obama, Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

28. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Spending freeze – The AP points out that it will save less than 1% of predicted deficits over the next ten years — and that Obama scoffed at such a plan when John McCain proposed it in 2008.

Health care – Obama said the Democratic plan would allow people to keep their insurance and their doctors, but the bill doesn’t guarantee either. Their plan has massive cuts to Medicare Advantage, which would definitely affect coverage of a large portion of America’s seniors and disabled.

Lobbyists – Obama has not “excluded” lobbyists from his administration; he’s hired over a dozen for key posts, and the AP notes seven of those waivers were for White House posts. Obama called for restrictions on lobbyist contributions, but those already exist.

Two million jobs saved through Porkulus – The CBO puts the theoretical range between 600K and 1.6 million, but also cautions that the methodology of estimating jobs “saved or created” is “uncertain.” The last detailed numbers the White House produced totaled 650,000 — and were found to be highly inaccurate.

Openness: “Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign — to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN “so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it’s acted upon.”

Another whopper the AP doesn’t mention. Obama repeatedly insisted that he inherited massive budgetary problems from George Bush, but the Con Law professor may want to retake his high-school civics class. Congress passes budgets, not the President, and the last three budgets came from Democrats. In three years, they increased annual federal spending by $900 billion, while the admittedly profligate and irresponsible Republican Congresses under George Bush increased annual federal spending by $800 billion — in six years. And during the last three years before taking office as President, Obama served in the Senate that passed those bills, and he voted for every Democratic budget put in front of him.

Ed Morrissey at HotAir.com

Posted in Corruption And Lies, President Obama, Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

28. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

President Obama gives a good speech. He’s smooth, unruffled by audience response, good at a timely ad-lib remark, and knows how to win over a tough crowd–all skills that were in evidence at last night’s State of the Union address. But he’s also good at telling whoppers.

Here are a few.

Talking about health care, and the stalled bills in House and Senate which have become so encrusted with pro-industry amendments that the whole process should be referred to as the Health Industry Enrichment Act, Obama said at one point, addressing the doubts many in Congress and among the broader public have about those bills, “If anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Let me know. Let me know. I’m eager to see it.”

Hm-m-m. Actually, he has not been eager to see other ideas at all. John Conyers has had another idea: extending Medicare to cover everyone. He had it in the form of a bill, HR 676, but at the urging of the White House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kept that bill from even getting a hearing. Earlier, almost a year ago, Obama held a conference at the White House to hear ideas about health care reform, but he excluded from that conference any advocates of what is called “single-payer”–shorthand for a Canadian-style health system in which the government insures everyone, and sets the reimbursement amounts for doctors and hospitals, medical services of all kinds, and drugs.

And yet, expanding Medicare to cover everyone, as I’ve written several times on this site, would probably end up costing less than the federal government and state and local governments (and of course ultimately taxpayers) already are spending on Medicaid, Veteran’s health care, hospital charity care, and other public medical programs, and in any event would, even if raising taxes slightly, simultaneously eliminate the health care costs for insurance currently paid by employers, employees and the self-employed, while also giving the government enormous power to negotiate lower costs for drugs, doctors and hospitals. Because the program would be larger and more powerful with respect to the private health care delivery system, it would also be able to reduce the cost of providing health care to the elderly who are already on Medicare.

That is to say, there is, already operating for 45 million elderly citizens, a health care program that, if expanded to all, would, as the president asked, “bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses.”

But the truth is, he doesn’t want to talk about it and doesn’t want to even hear about it.

The second big whopper was Iraq. There the president, to loud applause, said he would have all combat troops out of Iraq by August of this year. At another point, though, he went further, saying that “all our troops” would be “coming home.” The truth, though, is that they won’t be. In fact, though, as many as 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq after this August. Whether they will be “in combat” or not is really not up to them. If they are attacked, of course they will be in combat. They may well be sent into battle too, though who knows if we’ll hear about it. There are unlikely to be too many members of the press with them, as the focus shifts to Afghanistan. But 50,000 is a lot of troops–much more than the US has in South Korea, for instance. It’s hardly an end to the war in Iraq.

Third, the president slipped by the new big war, Afghanistan, in an astonishingly abrupt single paragraph. Think about it. He has ordered an escalation of that conflict, where the US already has committed 70,000 troops, with another 30,000 on the way, not counting perhaps 50-60,000 more private mercenaries, and has called for a new aggressive strategy of capturing and holding territory–a strategy that is bound to increase both US and innocent Afghani casualties–and he only said a couple of sentences about it.

And those sentences were full of lies. Obama said the US is “training Afghan security forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home,” but he knows his own advisors are telling him that those Afghan military forces are incapable of being expanded to do that job. The whole country is basically illiterate and not capable of being trained to handle much of the equipment, the military and police are hopelessly corrupt, and the tribal system makes a unified national army a pipe-dream. He said the US will “reward good governance,” but in fact has allied itself with a corrupt narco-regime led by Hamid Karzai, whose own brother is a leading drug kingpin.

There were more lies and misleading statements through the speech, for example his lie that his administration has “prohibited torture,” but these three alone make it amply clear that the president was not doing his constitutional duty of giving Congress an accurate report on the “state of the union.”

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-are journalist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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26. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

The Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a prominent Democratic Party campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids.

Despite President Obama’s long history of criticizing the Bush administration for “sweetheart deals” with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic Party donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide “rule of law stabilization services” in war-torn Afghanistan.

Update: Interestingly, according to FedSpending.org, the new contract is about a third of what Checchi got over the previous eight years put together — 92% of which came in full competition.  Suddenly, in the Obama administration, Checchi gets a pass from competition and a big contract to go along with it.  Hope and (Spare) Change!

Update II: Looks like Vincent and Adam Checchi maxed out their donations to Obama in the last election cycle.  Together with their employees, Checchi donated over $14,000 to Democratic presidential candidates.  They also tossed a few spare dollars to the DNC and MoveOn.

Update III: Real Clear Politics has Obama himself invoking Halliburton while saying that the days of “sweetheart deals” to campaign donors and lobbyists would be over if he was elected President.

Posted in Federal Government, Corruption And Lies, President Obama, Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

26. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

During Tuesday night’s coverage of the Massachusetts special election, CNN and MSNBC aired only a fraction of the Republican candidate’s speech. Fox News Channel aired both candidates’ speeches in their entirety.

When Martha Coakley (D) took the podium to concede the election, all three channels aired most or all of the eight-minute speech. However, Republican Scott Brown’s address was cut short on CNN after just seven minutes. On MSNBC Keith Olbermann cut Brown’s mic and instead attacked the Republican candidate, talked about “teabaggers”, and ran commercials. CNN only ran 26% of Brown’s speech, while MSNBC aired 37%. Fox News Channel carried 100% of both speeches:

Yes, we know the Brown speech ran longer (27 minutes). But really, isn’t this exactly the sort of thing Media Matters would trumpet if positions were reversed? You know it is.

Posted in News - Media Matters, WakeUp America | No Comments »

22. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Scott Brown’s election victory in Massachusetts represents a direct response to the false promises of hope and change made by president Barack Obama.

Brown took the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to become the first Republican senator elected from Massachusetts since 1972.

Brown could now provide the telling vote to prevent the Democratic-led health care plan from progressing, a fact that did not escape voters who vented their anger at what they now see as a year of broken promises and let downs by our President Obama.

Voters noted that health care and a more general backlash against the Obama Administration were key factors in the election.

Posted in President Obama, Democratic Party | No Comments »

22. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

An Obama executive order that creates a council of state governors who will work with the feds to expand military involvement in domestic security, together with PDD 51, a Bush era executive order that gives the President dictatorial power in times of national emergency, eliminate the last roadblocks to declaring martial law in the United States.

It should be strongly noted the decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In other words, this act would not give Congress any oversight, no rights for business or people to take any legal or civil actions.  And it basically tells the American people to go fornicate themselves.

The new order, which is entitled Establishment of the Council of Governors (PDF), creates a body of ten state governors directly appointed by Obama who will work with the federal government to help advance the “synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States”.

The governors will liaise with officials from Northcom, Homeland Security, the National Guard as well as DoD officials from the Pentagon “in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments,” according to the executive order.

The exective order combines seamlessly with Presidential Decision Directive 51 to hand Obama dictator status in times of declared, and not necessarily genuine, national emergency.

In May 2007, former President George W. Bush sparked much alarm by openly declaring himself to be a dictator in the event of a national emergency under provisions that effectively nullify the U.S. constitution, but such an infrastructure has been in place for over 70 years and this merely represented a re-authorization of martial law powers.

Legislation signed on May 9, 2007, declares that in the event of a “catastrophic event”, the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.

Secretary of Homeland Security in charge of domestic “security”, was signed earlier without the approval or oversight of Congress and seemingly supercedes the National Emergency Act which allows the president to declare a national emergency but also requires that Congress have the authority to “modify, rescind, or render dormant” such emergency authority if it believes the president has acted inappropriately.

These new powers have now been handed over to President Obama, allowing him, along with a body of councillors personally selected by him, to declare martial law without there necessarily being a genuine national emergency, greasing the skids for U.S. troops and National Guard to conduct domestic policing of the American people.

In October 2008, Northcom, a Unified Combatant Command of the United States military based out of Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, was assigned the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team returning from Iraq. An alarming September 8 Army Times report which was later denied after it sparked controversy stated that the troops would be used by Northcom to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” in the aftermath of a national emergency.

The Obama executive order states that governors will help advise the feds on National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.

The fact that the order further blurs the lines between state and federal power, as well as greasing the skids for more military involvement in domestic affairs has stoked fears that Obama may be laying the groundwork for his promised “national civilian security force”.

In July 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio (D – OR) was asked by his constituents to see what was contained within the classified portion of the White House’s plan for operating the government after a terrorist attack.

Since DeFazio also sits on the Homeland Security Committee and has clearance to view classified material, the request would have appeared to be routine, but the Congressman was unceremoniously denied all access to view the documents, and the White House wouldn’t even give an excuse as to why he was barred.

“I just can’t believe they’re going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack,” DeFazio told the Oregonian.

“We’re talking about the continuity of the government of the United States of America,” DeFazio says. “I would think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee.”

“Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right,” DeFazio concluded.

Conservatives and libertarians responded to the announcement by expressing their suspicion that Obama is preparing to give governors their marching orders in targeting “anti-government” types that have long been characterized as a terrorist threat by the feds in numerous reports stretching back over a decade.

“There is a definite purpose to this,” wrote one commenter on the popular Free Republic website, “The initial steps toward a domestic “Civilian Security Force” in each state, as called for by the fascisti during the campaign. It will be coordinated at the state level, under the authority of DHS and DoD and assorted agencies. The provision will be made for it to be “federalized” in an emergency, as is the National Guard.”

“This is a concrete step toward eliminating the independent authority and dissolving the sovereignty of the several States. It lays the groundwork for the end of the United States as a Republic,” she adds.

Others warn that Obama could be preparing to cancel elections under the justification of a national emergency, a fear that was often expressed when Bush was in office but one that never materialized.

However, the executive order clearly represents another assault on Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law that bars the military from exercising domestic police powers, which was temporarily annulled by the 2006 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act before parts of it were later repealed.

View the actual executive order by President Obama on our site at:

http://www.democraticreformparty.com/dictator-obama.pdf

Note: Without question, this is a clear violation of the Constitution of the United States.

Posted in Federal Government, Socialism In America, WakeUp America, President Obama, Constitution Violations | No Comments »

21. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Some facts about the federal debt:

It took the country from George Washington until Ronald Reagan—approximately 200 years—to reach the first $1 trillion in debt.

When politicians talk about reducing the deficit, they are not talking about the debt. Politicians driven by short-term election goals focus on short-term problems. For example, President Bush once told us the problem was shrinking, pointing to  the  annual federal budget deficit, which fell from a high of $413 billion in fiscal 2004 to about $163 billion in fiscal 2007. The debt, meanwhile, continues to skyrocket.

All of the taxes you pay, including Social Security, are used for today’s government services and benefits, not saved for the future.

According to the government’s Office of Management and Budget, “there are no economic assets in the Social Security trust fund.”

According to the Government Accountability Office, if spending on government retirement programs remains on its current course and revenues grow at their historical averages, interest on the debt could skyrocket from its current 9 percent to almost 30 percent of the budget by 2040.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernake has stated that the time to solve this problem was “ten years ago.” Meanwhile, Congressional Quarterly reports that a delay of even 10 years in solving this will double the required pain to solve it.

We are now considering making the nation’s fiscal problems much worse by expanding entitlements and bail-outs.  Fiscal 2009 will add more than a trillion dollars to the federal debt via deficit spending and as much as another five trillion in unfunded liabilities.

The above sounds bad enough—but it gets even worse. Together with unfunded liabilities (all of the benefits that the government has promised to seniors, Baby Boomers, and other citizens) our nation is in the hole for nearly $62 trillion dollars.

 Politicians will tell you that the federal debt is around $12 trillion.

That’s more than $200,000 for every man, woman, and child in America, and it’s growing every day.

We have been diagnosed with fiscal cancer,” says David Walker, the retired chief auditor of the United States government. “It seems clear that our nation’s current fiscal path is unsustainable.”

As the people who pay the bills, it’s time to demand more of our political leaders—and to demand real solutions to an issue that could soon lead to a crisis. That’s what Truth in 2010 is all about. Join us today.

Why does our national debt matter?

Nonpartisan financial experts tell us that our nation faces a unique set of pressures (to spend increasing amounts on health care, to sustain retirees’ benefits with fewer active workers, and to fund the growing amount of interest on the national debt) that could culminate in a massive economic crisis.

Bob Bixby, the head of the Concord Coalition, points out that no one can predict when this crisis will erupt—or if it will unfold as “a long, slow erosion in the standard of living.” To each of us, that would mean less choices in life, less freedom, and less of the things we take for granted each day.

With its shaky financial position and dozens of unfunded promises, the United States also faces threats to national security. With its financial assets in quicksand, the US would be less able to compete on an international level and less able to counter threats from competitors abroad. As our nation slips deeper and deeper into debt, it loses its flexibility, its power, and even its ability to operate on a very basic level.

The bottom line: the national debt matters because we, the people, are the ones who pay the bills. We are the ones who will be impacted by a financial crisis. That’s why it is crucial to spread the Truth in 2010.

Posted in Federal Debt, Social Security, Federal Government | No Comments »

20. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Submitted by George Falters

We should remember the history on how the progressives and liberals have taking over our Democratic Party.

In 1972, McGovern and the far left captured control of the Democratic Party.  Even during Bill Clinton’s supposedly “moderate” era, the party was still run by “progressives” (what Marxists call themselves to hide the fact they are Marxists). The remaining pro-freedom Democrats, like “Scoop” Jackson, were forced out of the party. As Ronald Reagan (a former Democrat and labor union president) said, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left me.”

By 1998 the progressive and liberals had succeeded in taking over our Democratic Party, for every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate voted to keep President Clinton in office when they knew and publicly admitted he was guilty of multiple felonies for which the House impeached him.

Posted in Corruption And Lies, Political History, President Clinton, Democratic Party | No Comments »

17. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Here is a small updated list of the broken campaign promises made by President Obama:

1.  End income tax for seniors making less than $50,000, This would of eliminated all income taxation for 7 million seniors making less than $50,000 per year.

2.  Allow penalty-free hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts in 2008 and 2009.

3.  End no-bid government contacts over $25,000. This would of ensured that federal contracts over $25,000 are competitively bid.

4.  Allow five days of public comment before signing government bills. This would of reduced bills being rushed through Congress and to the president before the public had the opportunity to review them. In other words, Obama said, “he will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.”

5.  Tougher rules against revolving door for lobbyists and former officials. This would of stopped political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration from being permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.

6.  Pay for the national service plan without increasing the deficit. This would of maintained fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government (to pay for a national service plan that will cost about $3.5 billion per year when it is fully implemented). This plan will be paid for in part by canceling tax provisions that would otherwise help multinational corporations pay less in U.S. taxes starting in 2008 by reallocating tax deductions for interest expenses between income earned in the U.S. and income earned abroad. The rest of the plan will be funded using a small portion of the savings associated with ending the war in Iraq.

7.  Reduce earmarks to 1994 levels. This would of committed to returning earmarks to less than $7.8 billion a year, the level they were at and before 1994.

8.  Create a $3,000 tax credit for companies that add jobs. This would have provided existing businesses with receiving a $3,000 refundable tax credit for each additional full-time employee hired.

9.  Negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN.

Anyway, the list of broken promises go on and on.

Posted in Corruption And Lies, President Obama, Politics | No Comments »

16. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Imagine a state law that says that any federal agent that comes into said state and runs afoul of a new state law should be considered a felon! Well, that is what New Hampshire is about to do if HB1285 passes during the coming 2010 legislative session.

HB1285 is another one of those laws that exempts all firearms and firearms accessories that are made in a state from certain federal restrictions if they remain in that state. Several states have made attempts to implement these 10th Amendment laws and New Hampshire intends to be one of the next to do so.

Thus far Montana and Tennessee have passed their own firearms freedom acts and thirteen or so other states have introduced or are introducing laws that exempts local firearms industries and accessories as well as in-state firearms owners from overweening federal gun banning laws.

To be sure, these laws have not yet been challenged in a Supreme Court case and there is no doubt that they will be, but until that happens as each state passes its own firearms act exempting its in-state manufacturers and owners from federal laws we cannot help but expect an increasing amount of tension to build up between the states and the federal government as a result.

All that said, there is an interesting aspect of the New Hampshire law that goes a step beyond that of other states, that being the aforementioned idea of making felons of federal agents that dare to try and implement federal firearms laws that conflict with the new state laws.

Here is section II. of the Penalty section of New Hampshire’s proposed new Lawful Commerce in Firearms law: (my emphasis) II. Any official, agent, or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class B felony.

Interesting is it not? This law would make a felon of any federal agent that tries to implement a federal firearms law that conflicts with New Hampshire’s new firearms law. That is simply an astonishing flourish, is it not?

Whatever happens these laws are setting up a certain clash between the states and the federal government. unless the federal government follows the states to the same destination for firearms regulations, that is.

So, it’s a waiting game. Which will come first? Will the feds follow the states to the same firearm regulation conclusions or will the feds haul the states into court?

It ought to be an interesting few years in firearms law making.

Posted in State Sovereignty, Federal Government, Right To Bear Arms | No Comments »

15. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

A front-page headline in the January 1, 2010 edition of the Washington Post read “Homicide totals in 2009 plummet in District, Prince Georges.” The story below detailed how the number of murders in the U.S. Capital had dropped to the lowest level in 45 years.

Last year was also the first full year since the Washington D.C. handgun ban was overturned by the Supreme Court - meaning it was the first full year Washington D.C. residents could legally keep handguns in their homes - yet the front page story didn’t even mention the case. If the murder rate had gone up even .1%, you can be sure our Democratic Party representatives in Washington and the Washington Post Newspaper would’ve pointed out that handguns had been legalized.

To help get this story out, we direct your attention to this op-ed piece that sheds light on the Post’s omission.

Read full article…

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14. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

Amazingly, these Obama lies, or to put it mildly, “broken promises”, all are from the same speech given during his 2008 presidential campaign. You may first assume the lies were snippets taken from several speeches, then sliced together. However, they were rifled off, one right after the other. Can you imagine what the press reaction would have been if George W. Bush had rattled off this many lies?

While this is not an exhaustive list (For example, Obama pledged during his presidential campaign that lobbyists “won’t find a job in my White House,” a promise that was broken immediately and repeatedly.) Below is the video, followed by a written transcript of President Obama’s broken campaign promises, all conveniently wrapped in one speech:

1. “I’ll make our government open and transparent, so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business.”
2. “Louis Brandeis once said, ‘Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.’” (Actual quote is: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Close enough for government work. I’m going to cut the President some slack for paraphrasing the quote.)
3. “As President, I’m going to make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one’s looking…”
4. “When I’m President, meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. No more secrecy. That is the commitment I make to you as President.”
5. “When there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you the public will have five days to look online to see what’s in it before I sign it.”
6. “When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency, we’ll put as many of those meetings as possible online for every American to watch.”
7. “When there’s a tax bill being debated in Congress, you will know the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get, and we will put every corporate tax break and every pork barrel project online for every American to see. You will know who asked for them and you can decide whether your representative is actually representing you.”

Posted in Corruption And Lies, President Obama, Democratic Party | No Comments »

13. January 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

(Washington, D.C.) - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today called upon Congress and the Obama administration to open the doors and allow taxpayers to view all of the proceedings related to negotiations over the healthcare reform bill.  In response to decisions of the Democratic Senate and House leaders to first bypass the conference and reconciliation phase of legislative process and then to hold negotiations on the final version of the healthcare bill behind closed doors, C-SPAN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brian Lamb wrote a letter urging an open, televised process.  Since then, pressure to open the talks to the public has grown to a fevered pitch.

“The 1971 Woody Allen movie ‘Bananas’ includes a comment that accurately describes this entire process,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “‘It’s a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.’”

“Barring the public from hearing, fully reviewing, and understanding what is being wrought in the healthcare negotiations is manifestly undemocratic and belies the claim that Congress is the greatest deliberative body in the world in the greatest democracy in the world,” added Schatz.  “This maneuver invalidates all the lofty rhetoric that was spewed by both President Obama, when he was a candidate, and the House and Senate leadership, who promised to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.  Taxpayers, who have expressed their opposition to this legislation in poll after poll, at hundreds of town hall meetings, in millions of letters and e-mails to their representatives on Capitol Hill have been routinely dismissed, ignored and, now, shut out of the process completely.”

The latest decisions made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) follow a pattern that tracked much of the bill’s evolution.  In the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Reid crafted the final manager’s amendment behind closed doors with only his staff.  The secretive nature of the process reached such ridiculous levels that, at one point, after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) took to Senate floor to decry the inscrutability of the process, colleague Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) defended it by saying that even he wasn’t privy to what was being done to the bill. 

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

Posted in Health Care Bill, President Obama, Democratic Party | 2 Comments »