18. February 2010 by Democratic Party News - The News of the Democratic Party.

All the information on this video has been discussed at length, and why it did not get out before the election is mystifying. In the book Muslim Brotherhood it talks about documents that were identified at the CAIR headquarters in discussing the large amount of monies raised for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. As such, they were asking that Barack Obama bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed back to New York for the trials in return for their support. Well, Barack Obama is trying to keep his promise to the Hamas backed CAIR… how special is that?

The Democratic Party pundits in Washington like to spout off how Bush tried the terrorists in Civilian courts but they do not talk about the real fact that George Bush fought congress for almost 8 years to get military trials, and finally in 2008 Congress (including Barack Obama) passed a law allowing for military trials of enemy combatants.

It is no wonder we are now seeing blue dog Democrats deserting like rats from a sinking ship because they are now seeing the light.

Posted in Socialism In America, Corruption And Lies, WakeUp America, President Obama, Constitution Violations, The Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

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, The 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

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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, The Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

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

Candidate Press Release, dated January 21, 2010.

George Erdel; Democrat candidate for the United States House or Representatives, Tennessee 6th District.

Last night we witnessed history in the making as the U.S. Senate Seat formally occupied by Senator Edward Kennedy was lost to a somewhat conservative Republican candidate.  This upset, in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a margin greater than 3 to 1 should send a strong message to our party leaders that business can not continue as it has for the past year.  While we have been the party in power with solid super majorities in both houses of congress our party has fallen victim to the actions of the most liberal members of our party.

The Massachusetts election told us that a vast majority of Americans, whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent, are fed up wit the status quo in Washington.  They have clearly told us that pending legislation such as the health care reform which our party has passed in the House and Senate is the wrong way to go in our efforts to improve the best health care system in the world.   They also express their dissatisfaction with the extreme Liberal legislation such as the Cap and Trade bill, the record government deficits as a result of government bailouts of major industries in the nation.  America by I large has not supported these programs, and in Massachusetts they said they still do not like the manner in which Pelosi and Reid have ignored the electorate while pushing forward at break neck speed with their far left agenda. 

Their message is right on target.  While we are the party in power we could have passed reasonable and logical health care reform, had we not allowed the leadership under Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid to force upon the nation a bill that was crafted by the most Liberal members of our party, and special interests groups while shutting out all conservative Democrats as well as both the liberals and conservatives of the Republican Party.

As the only candidate having qualified by the Tennessee Department of State, to run for the Tennessee 6th District being vacated by Congressman Bart Gordon next year, I respectfully ask of our County, State and National Democrat party leaders that they take a long hard look at their contributions to the actions which led up to the Loss of this Senate seat in Massachusetts.  This loss, coming only months after suffering similar major losses in Virginia and New Jersey in November, is nothing more than a restatement of the same message voters sent in those elections. 

Failure to heed the warning of these voters will come at great peril to the Democrat Party, should our party power brokers and Congressional leaders continue on the same reckless path they followed during 2009.

As a Democrat I am ashamed and disgusted of the manner in which the House and Senate leadership under the command of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  For leaders having promised at the beginning of their reigns to be the most transparent, and voicing plans to maintain the highest level of integrity and government ethics, they have instead resurrected the corrupt smoke filled back room politics from years past, as well as demonstrating that political prostitution is alive and well within our party. 

Americans are tired of this and they are demonstrating their dissatisfaction by turning out during bad weather in record numbers to clearly state their case.  Will our Democrat leaders take heed and begin to behave in a manner consistent with their promises during the 2008 campaign or will they continue on the same shameful track to our own detriment.

The Massachusetts Election clearly demonstrates that there are many more rank and file conservative Democrats than the party leadership wishes to acknowledge.  As a Conservative Democrat Candidate I certainly hope that the message sent by these recent losses to conservative candidates gets through to our party leadership.
George Erdel is the only candidate to have qualified to be on the ballot for the Tennessee 6th Congressional District Primary election I August.

Web site: http://www.georgefortennessee.com

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

Murfreesboro’s George Erdel (pronounced er-dell) is the first candidate in Tennessee to qualify for a federal race this year. He is running for Tennessee’s Sixth District U.S. House of Representatives position that’s being vacated with Congressman Bart Gordon’s retirement. The local Democrat filed his petition and application with the Rutherford County Election Commission on Thursday (1/7/10). He told WGNS News that within an hour and half, the Election Commission’s Anita White notified him that all 39 names on the petition were validated. Erdel then presented a confirmation letter from the county to the State Election Commission in Nashville. “That’s when I learned about being the first candidate in the state to qualify.”

Erdel supports the right to bear arms, in fact he was armed and wearing a shoulder holster during the interview at WGNS. He noted his strong opposition to abortions and feels that global warming is a farce. He said, “It’s just another way for liberals to tax us for the energy we use.”

He said, “If elected, I’m there for the people of the sixth district, not for Pelosi or her cronies.” There is more information about George Erdell at http://www.georgefortennessee.com

Posted in Candidates - 2010, Running For Office, Congress, The Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

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

GUEST COLUMN: State needs conservative Democrat in House.

I want to thank Mr. Sam Stockard for his opinion column Jan. 12, 2010. I also wish to thank him for the opportunity to set the record straight about my candidacy and campaign for the United States House of Representatives, Tennessee 6th District.

Mr. Stockard emphasized my passive use of the term “Dixiecrat” which I merely used as a reference to values I consider to be, at their core, traditional Democratic Party ideals. I used it because of the historically conservative nature of the Democrats and Dixiecrats when it came to respecting the Constitution, as well as social and economic justice. Traditional Democrats, like JFK and others believed these were not only realistic, but were only guaranteed by their strict adherence to the United Sates Constitution. I believe this also.

Contrary to the title of Mr. Stockard’s column, I am not seeking office under the mantle of “Dixiecrat.” I am a Democrat, and I am running as such. To date, I am the only candidate having qualified to run from any political party. I will be on the August primary ballot as a Democrat.

When one looks at the wording of the very first Democratic Party platform, penned in 1840 it becomes evident that those Democrats were very conservative, and stood for the working people.

It was those conservative values which the National Democratic Party abandoned years ago. What happened to our party? It was infiltrated and overrun by liberals. These liberals began to cater to every disenfranchised group of malcontents that came knocking on the door with promises of block voting in return for tax dollars from the working class.

As the Democratic Party became more ardently liberal during the 1950s and 1960s, many lifelong Democrats began to look for representation by other parties that more closely shared their values. My parents left the Democratic Party when Ronald Reagan joined the Republican Party in 1962. Now, nearly 50 years later, liberal ideology is also so deeply entrenched within the Republican Party that most Americans see little difference in either party.

As a result of the policies put in place by the liberals of both parties, America today is traveling on a highway toward a bridge that is out. If we do not alter course immediately following the next election, the America we knew growing up will only be chronicled in history books.

Fellow Democrats with more name recognition than me have commented that the 6th District can remain in the Democrat column if the party chooses a conservative, pro-gun, pro-life candidate. Prior to my entry into the 6th District race, such a candidate did not exist. I am that candidate. What the liberal faction of our party does not like is the fact that I am conservative on all issues, not just on issues of the Second Amendment and abortion. Tennessee voters have watched the past year as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid repeatedly capitulated to the beck and call of the president, against the overwhelming will of the people, in order to blaze his socialist trail across America on issues such as cap-and-trade, and socialized medicine.

Tennesseans of the 6th District are ready to take their Tennessee fighting spirit to Washington and reclaim our Congress from the liberals of both parties. Neither I, nor any other single representative, will be able to fix the problem in one term or several terms for that matter. Remember it took 50 years to get here. What will I do? If you send me to represent you in the 6th District, I will work closely with conservative representatives of both parties to turn our nation onto the solid, fiscally sound road that takes us away from the irreparably broken “bail-out” bridge that threatens our prosperity for future generations.

I invite you to join me in taking the Tennessee fight to Washington to begin the tasks ahead. Together we can do it, but we must start with this year’s elections. I will accept all invitations to visit any group to discuss the vital issues that threaten us. Contact information can be found in my Web site at http://www.georgefortennessee.com

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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 »

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…

Posted in Right To Bear Arms, Politics | No Comments »

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

By ORRIN G. HATCH, J. KENNETH BLACKWELL AND KENNETH A. KLUKOWSKI

President Obama’s health-care bill is now moving toward final passage. The policy issues may be coming to an end, but the legal issues are certain to continue because key provisions of this dangerous legislation are unconstitutional. Legally speaking, this legislation creates a target-rich environment. We will focus on three of its more glaring constitutional defects.

First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress’s powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.

Congress has many times stretched this power to the breaking point, exceeding even the expanded version of the commerce power established by the Supreme Court since the Great Depression. It is one thing, however, for Congress to regulate economic activity in which individuals choose to engage; it is another to require that individuals engage in such activity. That is not a difference in degree, but instead a difference in kind. It is a line that Congress has never crossed and the courts have never sanctioned.

In fact, the Supreme Court in United States v. Lopez (1995) rejected a version of the commerce power so expansive that it would leave virtually no activities by individuals that Congress could not regulate. By requiring Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service, Congress would be doing exactly what the court said it could not do.

Some have argued that Congress may pass any legislation that it believes will serve the “general welfare.” Those words appear in Article I of the Constitution, but they do not create a free-floating power for Congress simply to go forth and legislate well. Rather, the general welfare clause identifies the purpose for which Congress may spend money. The individual mandate tells Americans how they must spend the money Congress has not taken from them and has nothing to do with congressional spending.

A second constitutional defect of the Reid bill passed in the Senate involves the deals he cut to secure the votes of individual senators. Some of those deals do involve spending programs because they waive certain states’ obligation to contribute to the Medicaid program. This selective spending targeted at certain states runs afoul of the general welfare clause. The welfare it serves is instead very specific and has been dubbed “cash for cloture” because it secured the 60 votes the majority needed to end debate and pass this legislation.

A third constitutional defect in this ObamaCare legislation is its command that states establish such things as benefit exchanges, which will require state legislation and regulations. This is not a condition for receiving federal funds, which would still leave some kind of choice to the states. No, this legislation requires states to establish these exchanges or says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will step in and do it for them. It renders states little more than subdivisions of the federal government.

This violates the letter, the spirit, and the interpretation of our federal-state form of government. Some may have come to consider federalism an archaic annoyance, perhaps an amusing topic for law-school seminars but certainly not a substantive rule for structuring government. But in New York v. United States (1992) and Printz v. United States (1997), the Supreme Court struck down two laws on the grounds that the Constitution forbids the federal government from commandeering any branch of state government to administer a federal program. That is, by drafting and by deliberate design, exactly what this legislation would do.

The federal government may exercise only the powers granted to it or denied to the states. The states may do everything else. This is why, for example, states may have authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance but the federal government does not. It is also the reason states may require that individuals purchase car insurance before choosing to drive a car, but the federal government may not require all individuals to purchase health insurance.

This hardly exhausts the list of constitutional problems with this legislation, which would take the federal government into uncharted political and legal territory. Analysts, scholars and litigators are just beginning to examine the issues we have raised and other issues that may well lead to future litigation.

America’s founders intended the federal government to have limited powers and that the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi legislation to take control of the American health-care system is the most sweeping and intrusive federal program ever devised. If the federal government can do this, then it can do anything, and the limits on government power that our liberty requires will be more myth than reality.

Mr. Hatch, a Republican senator from Utah, is a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Blackwell is a senior fellow with the Family Research Council and a professor at Liberty University School of Law. Mr. Klukowski is a fellow and senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union.

Posted in Socialism In America, Health Care Bill, Federal Government, WakeUp America, President Obama, Constitution Violations, The Democratic Party, Politics | No Comments »

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

Many citizens in this great country, mostly young adults and liberals, do not comprehend (or do and don’t care) how fundamentally, remarkably and negatively President Obama is transforming America, right before our very eyes. Like my teacher and mentor, Dennis Prager, I believe America is the greatest country in the history of the world because of very specific and unique values we hold so dearly. Most important among these values is the American Trinity (which Dennis explains in detail below): E Pluribus Unum (from many one), God and Liberty. And in my opinion, liberty is paramount. President Obama and the liberal Congress are corroding these values, unlike any US Government in history.

By massively expanding the size and scope of the government, Obama is taking more power and freedom out of the hands of the American people, and giving it to the government. By raising taxes, Obama is reducing, perhaps, our greatest rights as American citizens and humans; private property and the right to do what one please with the fruits of their labor. By pushing cap and trade legislation, Obama is reducing the freedom with which American businesses can operate. By advocating socialized healthcare, Obama is putting 1/6th of the entire GDP into the hands of the government, essentially ruining our healthcare system; a system that is no doubt flawed and in need of improvements, but inarguably the greatest healthcare system in the world.

Furthermore, by not participating in the National day of prayer, the President is sending a signal that God does not play an important role in our country. This is nothing new, as the left has long abandoned the idea that God plays a pivotal role in American exceptionalism, as lefty organizations such as the ACLU attack God and religion every chance they get — promoting the outlaw of an optional moment of silence to be held in public schools, and demanding the words, “under God” be stripped from the pledge of allegiance. It was with the utmost intention that the second paragraph of the declaration of independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” It is obvious what the founders intended when they used the word “creator.” Americans get our rights directly from G-d, not from the government. Once God is taken out of the picture then natural rights and liberty are tenuous and left up to the whim of politicians. This is one of the main reasons Communist countries were, and still are, synonymous with secularism and totalitarianism, as the all encompassing government crowds out the necessity of God and natural rights.

Yes, that’s right, we as Democrats voted for change in 2008, and change is precisely what we’re getting.

Posted in Socialism In America, Bill Of Rights, Federal Government, WakeUp America, President Obama, Constitution Violations, The Democratic Party, Politics | 1 Comment »