Governor Chris Christie Performs With Boston Pops Ensemble

Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, is caught here working with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center…..no, he isn’t playing Santa Claus….He is reading “Twas the Night before Christmas”.

Take a look.   The video is by Saed Hindash at the Star Ledger.

You may have noticed that I really like this chubby American both as a Governor and as a citizen.

http://videos.nj.com/star-ledger/2010/12/governor_chris_christie_reads.html

Republicans Need Savvy Leader to Organize for 2012 to Replace Michael Steele

Michael Steele, no matter how winsome he seemed to be when he first showed up at RNC leader, is damaged goods due to his own foolishness mismanaging.     He must be replaced.  He has become an embarrassment to the Party.

Margaret Carlson at Bloomberg has written the following:

Choosing the next chairman of the Republican National Committee will test the power and effectiveness of the Republican Party. In particular, it will provide a useful barometer of the party’s ability to coalesce behind a strong candidate for president in 2012.

The logic is simple: If it can’t stop Michael Steele from winning a second term as chairman, after the disaster that was his first, how can it possibly stop Sarah Palin?

To the consternation of the Republican establishment, Steele and Palin both are proceeding full speed ahead.

What’s shocking about Steele’s progress in particular is that he shouldn’t be difficult to derail. His RNC tenure was marked by spending so profligate it would make a congressman blush.

His former political director, Gentry Collins, blasted Steele on his way out the door, blaming his onetime boss for leading the party into the 2012 cycle with “100 percent of the RNC’s $15 million in lines of credit tapped out, and unpaid bills likely to add millions to that.”

Granted, Collins is no unbiased source, since he is now running against Steele for the chairman’s job. But his account meshes with other evidence, such as the complaints by some candidates that critical get-out-the-vote efforts were shortchanged because of a lack of RNC resources.

Embarrassing Moments

After multiple other embarrassments — that $2,000 reimbursement to a donor who paid for a group trip to a bondage- themed club, Steele’s reported interest in buying a private jet, his giving speeches for pay, the times he said Afghanistan is “a war of Obama’s choosing” and abortion is an individual choice — Steele was expected to go quietly, even gratefully, at the end of his term.

Everything was going as planned. Five serious candidates stepped up to replace him. He wasn’t huddling with the few advisers he has left, or combing the party for support.

Then on Dec. 13 he popped up with a statement via his private e-mail account — one with a casual sense of capitalization that would have made E.E. Cummings proud — saying yes, he would run again.

How’s that for going rogue?

There doesn’t seem to be any party leader with the clout to stop Steele or cut a deal he can’t refuse. The fight to sideline him is taking place in the press, with what passes for the establishment haranguing him. Wayne Berman, who was finance chairman for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, told Politico that Steele’s “arrogant style, cult of personality and embarrassing mismanagement are sources of great discontent with the major fundraisers of the party.”

Reagan’s Commandment

So much for Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment — don’t speak ill of another Republican. If Steele persists, the election at the RNC meeting in January could prove that the old saw about Democrats now fits the GOP: I’m not a member of an organized party, I’m a Republican.

This tells you a lot about the state of political parties today. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have been weakened by a parallel universe of groups such as MoveOn.org, the Tea Party and so-called 527 organizations. Never close to perfect, the parties in healthier times nonetheless provided basic governance, platforms and rules. They held conventions that actually chose nominees, kept the grassroots connected and provided a ladder for aspiring politicians to climb.

A lot of those functions are so yesterday. Around the country in 2010, Republicans nominated virtual strangers: wrestling impresario Linda McMahon in Connecticut, Carl Paladino in New York, Meg Whitman in California, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware. See how many of the 168 RNC committeemen and committeewomen could identify these candidates’ mug shots.

Parties Over

Could the oft-repeated prediction that the parties are dead finally be coming true?

The Republicans’ most reliable spokesman and strategic thinker right now, Karl Rove, has no official party role. American Crossroads, the group he helped found, is a huge spender and likely kingmaker going forward.

A claque of talk-show hosts, including Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, demand obedience, respect and apologies, should a Republican dare criticize them.

Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina runs his own informal Tea Party Caucus and seems determined to repeat his 2010 strategy of finding primary candidates to challenge sitting senators who don’t hew to his brand of Republicanism.

As much of a flameout as Steele was as chairman, about 25 percent of RNC members are inclined to support him, the National Journal reported. He did, after all, preside over the biggest net gain in House seats for either party since the 1940s. With no runaway front-runner among the five candidates vying to replace him, Steele could steal another term.

Filled Need

He would never have won the job initially had Republicans not thought they needed their own transformative figure to face off against America’s first black president. That turned out to be unnecessary; all they needed to do was just say no.

Even in this intimate, closed process — akin to the College of Cardinals choosing a Pope — Republican leaders might fail to rid themselves of a chairman who has proved he’s not up to the job.

Imagine how the party will handle Palin, another candidate most party leaders say is not up to the job, in an open and uncontrolled series of primaries and caucuses in 2012.

Mama Grizzly. Papa Grizzly. Hear them roar.

Obama Attack on and Skirting around the Federal Constitution

That Pesky Constitution!

On December 13, 2010, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson signed a Memorandum Opinion declaring unconstitutional a key provision of  the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 – better known as ObamaCare. In his legal cross hairs was Section 1501 of the Act, known as the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision, which requires every U.S. citizen, other than those falling within specified exceptions, to purchase a minimum level of health insurance coverage beginning in 2014. Section 1501 is administered and enforced as part of the Internal Revenue Code and failure to comply will result in a penalty included with the taxpayer’s annual federal tax return.

This new ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment came in the case of Commonwealth of Virginia v. Kathleen Sebelius, filed last March by Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, against Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, wherein the state of Virginia challenged the constitutionality of the pivotal enforcement mechanism contained in ObamaCare. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court will likely be the next stop for this critical ruling.

This ruling is a teachable constitutional moment and echoes one of the main criticisms of ObamaCare – that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution does not give Washington the power to require people to buy health insurance or face a stiff penalty. Opponents of the intrusive bill argued – successfully it seems – that the passage of Section 1501 exceeds the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Instead of policy wonks arguing about the political merits and economic stimulus of smaller federal government, perhaps the key to keeping Washington, D.C., in check has been under our noses the whole time – the U.S. Constitution.

Congressional Republicans are promising to pass “a clean repeal of ObamaCare” once they take over the House in January. That effort may be bolstered by the alarming number of people who are not surprised at the new court ruling. The three main arguments in support of ObamaCare – low cost, constitutionality, and support of the American people – have now all been thoroughly discredited. Repeal will be foremost on the minds of legislators next year, and any veto of efforts to repeal will undoubtedly remain on the minds of voters in 2012.

The core issue examined by Judge Hudson was whether or not Congress has the power to regulate – and tax – a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce, to wit, the purchase of insurance. Judge Henry correctly points out in his decision that no reported case from any federal appellate court in history has extended the Commerce Clause to include the regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product – notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce.

The Commerce Clause is one of the enumerated powers listed in the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3), which sets forth the limits of Congressional authority. The clause states that Congress has the power “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” The 10th Amendment provides that any powers not specifically vested in the federal government nor prohibited of the states are reserved to the states and to the people. Therefore, the only powers given to Congress are those specifically listed.

The status of ObamaCare’s mandate and penalties has endured the roller-coaster ride of truth since Obama first blasted Hillary Clinton for the idea during the 2008 presidential campaign. When campaigning against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama condemned Hillary’s call for an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, alleging that Clinton would garnish workers’ wages and that Massachusetts was “worse off” as a result of its individual mandate. That all changed during the debate over ObamaCare, when President Obama mocked George Stephanopoulos for suggesting the individual mandate was a tax. He couldn’t have been clearer. “I absolutely reject that notion,” he stated unequivocally. Still later, when he realized that their best chance of passing constitutional muster was to admit it was a tax, Obama reversed himself yet again. Obama spokespersons said that the tax argument was a linchpin of the individual mandate after all.

The need for this political yo-yo became clear in the federal judge’s analysis when he ripped the administration’s Commerce Clause argument a new one. The judge noted that Congress has the power to regulate and protect (1) the channels of interstate commerce, (2) the instrumentalities of or persons or things in interstate commerce, and (3) activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Only the third category was is at issue in this case. The secretary of Health and Human Services argued that an individual’s decision not to purchase health insurance constitutes “economic activity” and that nobody could simply avoid participation in the health care market because inevitably, every individual would require medical care. She stretched the bounds of credulity by arguing that the billions of dollars in uncompensated care every year constitutes “economic activity” sufficient to authorize Congressional authority over interstate commerce. Essentially, Washington argued that by not requiring full market participation, the interstate health care system would “implode.”

The original intent of the crafters of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause undoubtedly drew its original meaning from colonial mercantilist tradition, primarily restrictions on international trade, giving subsidy or protection to favored domestic merchants, or punishing imports or foreign producers. From that humble beginning the Commerce Clause has been inflated, expanded, and twisted like a pretzel to meet the desires of an ever-expanding federal government thirsty for control and power. It is far and away the most important tool used by judicial activists, and its interpretation was at the epicenter of Franklin Roosevelt’s socialist New Deal agenda.

For many years this clause was conservatively and strictly interpreted. It served as the sentinel and guardian against the onslaught of Progressivism in the 1920s, allowing the Supreme Court to strike down one big government, socialist measure after another. In the 1930s the clause also held back government expansion and huge programs like the National Recovery Act which would have given the federal government massive control over the economy. Using the limiting nature of the commerce clause, the Supreme Court struck down big-government initiatives with machine-gun like efficiency. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis is said to have told a Roosevelt aide, “This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we’re not going to let this government centralize everything.”

Roosevelt later declared war on the U.S. Supreme Court, complaining about the court’s “horse and buggy” definition of the Commerce Clause and, ironically, accusing it of reading into the clause words which were not there. Browbeaten, the Court ultimately relented and in the 1937 case of National labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation held that Congress could regulate intrastate labor relations if the “effects” were felt across state lines. In the 1942 decision in Wickard v. Filburn it ruled that even if the actions of an individual were not sufficient to trigger the Commerce Clause, the mere notion that if everybody acted like that individual it would affect interstate commerce was held sufficient to trigger its authority.

From that point forward the Commerce Clause dominoes began to fall. Civil rights legislation was deemed too important to let a little thing like the federal authority or the commerce clause get in the way. If a small, family-owned restaurant bought goods from out of state, its actions could be governed and regulated by Congress. The extent and power of the commerce clause has grown uncontrollably to the point where today, the federal government can control almost every aspect of our lives – much to the chagrin of the Founding Fathers. In less than 80 years, its authority was expanded to allow the federal government control over any business with out-of-state customers, any business using supplies which originate out-of-state, and any business whose actions could have the slightest effect on interstate commerce.

In a strange twist of political and historical irony, history may credit the overreaching thirst for power of the Obama administration with the ultimate re-collapse of Commerce Clause authority and a much-needed return to the original intent of the Founding Fathers with regard to the power and authority of the federal government.

Judge Hudson ruled last week that the ultimate power grab – Congress simply claiming that the Commerce Clause should apply because without commerce clause authority the “kinetic link that animates Congress’s overall regulatory reform of interstate health care and insurance markets” would fail – simply isn’t good enough. He said that the power granted to Congress is not without limitations. “Despite the laudable intentions of Congress in enacting a comprehensive and transformative health care regime, the legislative process must still operate within constitutional bounds,” Hudson wrote.

The judge noted that every application of Commerce Clause power ever found to be constitutional involved some sort of action, transaction, or deed placed in motion by an individual or legal entity. He rejected the federal government’s argument that because every individual will require health insurance at some point in their lives, the decision not to purchase health care insurance is such an activity. The fallacy of this argument is that if a decision not to do anything can qualify as activity in interstate commerce, there truly are no limits to federal power – which clearly was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. The court concluded that Congress lacked power under the Commerce Clause to pass ObamaCare.

Obama had a Plan B. As a back up argument, the secretary also maintained that congressional taxing power can be upheld even when its regulatory intent or purpose extends beyond its Commerce Clause authority – hence the flip-flip on whether ObamaCare’s penalty is actually a penalty or a tax. By now arguing it is a tax, the federal government could maintain a weak but colorable argument that it had constitutional authority to implement the health care mandate and penalty.

The law does provide that Congress can tax under its taxing power that which it can’t regulate. But Judge Hudson was having none of that either. He noted that if it was allowed to stand as a tax, Section 1501 would be the only tax in U.S. history to be levied directly on individuals for their failure to affirmatively engage in activity mandated by the government but not specifically delineated in the Constitution. The judge held that the lack of a constitutionally viable exercise of an enumerated power under the Commerce Clause was also fatal to the penalty contained within Obamacare, and that the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision exceeded the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.

President Obama’s massive power grab in the form of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 may be the catalyst needed to return sanity and reasonable limits to a bloated federal government mad with power and intrusive in ways never imagined by our Founding Fathers.  Although the U.S. Supreme Court will have the last say on the issue, Obama’s plot appears to have been foiled – for the moment. It seems that pesky Constitution has gotten in the way.

Lame Duck Losers Order Pork for Breakfast, Lunch, and Supper, Despite Financial Crisis

“Let them eat pork” the dearly departed from the 111th Congress proclaim for their folks back home even though the major issue facing the country as a whole, is massive bankruptcy.   Is there anyone who does not understand that most Democrats and some Republicans are unworthy to represent the American people no matter where they might hide or be seen.

And let shoult 3 cheers for the Tea Party people and pray that they will gain strength to identify and weed out the thistles who corrupt our American landscape.  Expose them, name them so they can be loathed far and wide.

Read Danny Yadron at Washington Wire of the Wall Street Journal.  He wrote an article, “Lame Duck Lawmakers Line up for Pork.”

“A bipartisan group of 13 senators who will be leaving Congress next month have their names on about $1.4 billion of the $8.3 billion in earmark funds in the Senate Democratic leadership’s $1.1 trillion omnibus spending proposal.

The 13 occupy a special place in the debate roiling the Democratic spending plan. Either because they retired or were defeated, they won’t be coming back. The omnibus represents the last chance they have to bring home the bucks to their constituents. And given how close the votes to move the proposal forward could be, they’ll be pivotal to the final outcome.

The numbers come from a Washington Wire analysis of a database compiled by earmark foe Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.). It’s worth noting that some of the outbound lawmakers, along with others, sometimes sponsored the same multimillion-dollar requests.

Who asked to take home the most of the soon-to-leave-Washington crowd? Utah Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, who fell this year to a tea party challenger who accused him, among other things, of grabbing too much pork for his state. Mr. Bennett requested $254 million.

Mr. Bennett’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday. But he defended his earmark requests earlier this week, saying if Congress doesn’t specify where to spend federal money, the executive branch will spend it somewhere else.

Congress must pass a spending bill by midnight Saturday or face a government shutdown. It’s unclear if the earmark-loaded bill will clear the Senate. GOP leaders – including some who have earmarks in the bill – have expressed opposition to the proposal.

Six of the seven outgoing Republican senators requested a combined $745 million, according to the Coburn data. The seventh, Sen. George LeMieux of Florida, did not request any earmarks in this bill.

Retiring New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, for instance, paired up with his state’s junior senator, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, to send $2.6 million to “Great Bay land acquisition” in Portsmouth, N.H.

Earmarks represent a rounding error in the federal budget. But deficit hawks and small-government advocates say earmarks drive excessive spending because they encourage lawmakers to support bloated appropriations bills in return for smaller slices of pork for home-state projects.

House Republicans, who rode an anti-spending wave to the majority in November, banned earmarks during the next Congress. A similar GOP-led effort failed in the Senate last month, with some Republicans voting against it.

Democrats, of course, make plenty of requests as well. (They’re also more likely to vote for this week’s appropriations bill containing them.)

A band of seven outgoing Democratic senators supported a combined $729 million in earmarks.

The defeated Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, helped petition for $223 million, more than any of her party’s departing senators. That included small items, such as $50,000 for riverfront development in Augusta, Ark., and larger ones, like $3.2 million for power modules on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – something she sought along with Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, also of Arkansas.

Defeated Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin made no requests.

Keep Your Eye on Labels and No Labels…..You Never Know What You Might Get!

The less Marxist  in Washington are looking for less foul air in a newer home.   The almost conservatives in that same neck of the woods, are looking for less clarity.   Both seek chameleon status.

They may be about to join at the hip and lip.    “And they shall be called….”No Labels”.

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline mentions these folks in his article, “No Labels Are Better Than Bad Labels.”

“Who is more likely to call for an end to political labels, someone whose views are widely branded by a label that puts off their fellow Americans or someone whose views are associated with a more popular label? The question answers itself, and helps explain why, when Byron York attended the “No Labels” rollout in New York City, he found that the event had a decidedly leftist flavor.

Although Democrats and Republicans have battled on essentially even terms for the past two decades, the battle between the two labels associated (albeit at times loosely) with these parties – liberal and conservative – has not been even. Americans have tended to self-identify as conservative more than liberal, and this is particularly true today.

Many liberals reacted to the erosion of their brand by changing labels. They became self-identified “progressives.” Although this was a shrewd move, it has been undermined by the large-scale unpopularity of the policies served up by progressives the first time (in modern history) that they governed under that label.

The alternative to re-labeling is de-labeling. And, though most progressives seem willing to stick with the progressive label for a while longer, some nervous nellies have concluded that resisting labels – and hoping that conservatives somehow will be shamed into following suit – will better serve their interests.

No wonder, then, that Byron came away from the rollout event thinking that “No Labels seems to have been primarily for Democrats seeking to portray themselves as centrist.” If, meanwhile, the progressive or liberal label makes a comeback, the left-leaning No Labelists can always call the whole thing off.”

Comment:  If I were an honest Democrat in today’s politics I would want to run away  from the Marxist, Liberal and Progressive labels as far as I could.   If I were one of those Republicans who doesn’t care about drugs, family, political pork and bribing, abortion, balancing budgets, child rearing, honesty,  loyalty, marriage  and reliability and would like to live as an elected official for the rest of his life without ever having to meet his constituency, No Label might be the way to go.  One would never find out who he is.   But then, George Soros money might show up to back  a conservative kind of label person to sink selected conservative campaigns. 

---

Dick Morris Request: Stop S.T.A.R.T. and Senate Pork!

A request from Political Rock Star, Dick Morris:

“The Democratic Congress is trying to pull a fast one — two, in fact! 
 
First, the Senate is jamming through a pork laden budget bill filled with projects that are payoffs to each Senators campaign donors.  The budget bill also includes a $1 billion appropriation to fund Obamacare — enough to get it moving.  We need to beat this bill!  We have enough Republicans to do so if they hold together.  But Voynovitch from Ohio and Kit Bond from Missouri are both possible defections.  Neither one is running again.  We need you to write and call your Senators to urge them to vote no on the budget and particularly no on the Obamacare funding!
 
Second, they are using their lame duck majority — explicitly rejected by the voters of America — to compromise our national security by ratifying the START treaty.
 
The treaty limits the US missile defenses and the preamble suggests that we would not engage in any new military technologies to thwart nuclear weapons!  It also says we cannot convert any of our rockets into interceptors and it locks in about a ten thousand Russian edge in tactical nuclear warheads.  It reduces strategic warheads — where there is now rough parity — but not tactical ones where Russia has a huge advantage.
 
And, why should we be rewarding Russia by relieving them of the expense of building new missiles and defense systems?  Had Reagan followed this line of liberal thinking, the Cold War would never have been won!  Remember that Russia’s economy is less than one-tenth the size of ours.  So the best way to reduce their power is to make them divert spending into the military.  That is the best way to accomplish our basic goal: To bring down a Russia increasingly focused on domination and replace it with a democratic nation that lives at peace with the world.
 
So please hit the phones!!!!!
 
Thanks,

Dick”

Note: It’s important to let your senator know how you feel about New START. The vote on the treaty will take place soon. Please call your senator in Washington today at 202-224-3121.

Request from polar opposite of a political rock star!      Take note of those Republicans who stick their hands into the PORK…..Remember those names and help us reform Washington by kicking them out of Congress, asap.

 

 

 

More Juveniles Smoke Pot Than Cigarettes = American Culture Sucks

Dennis Prager spent his first hour of his radio show today discussing  statistics behind the title of this article. 

I am an old American from an old time.  Much in today’s American culture sucks….to use modern American English.  Measuring which drug our children smoke, cigarettes or pot, tell “volumes” about what we have become.

It is a sick, an ailing culture led by the drugged leading the drugged suggesting the inevitable truth of  historian Arnold Toynbee’s statement:   “Great civilizations are not murdered.  They commit suicide”.

In once civilized America when thinking people, undrugged, seriously and soberly attempted to lead and follow a  country along certain rules for learning to achieve noble goals within democratic means.   Those familiar with the long trails of the human struggle and respect honesty know that the human story is a process from the yesterdays before yesterday, and the tomorrows after tomorrow, a story of inspiration and sorrow, of glory and terror. 

“Where did we come from and where are we going”….were the major questions in our cultural pursuits beyond  the problems of  our day after day.  That was my day, the day after day,  despite the  trials of the times, that make me declare how LUCKY I was to have aged  in such a time. 

I can’t remember ever being bored.  I have never smoked anything….Why would one smoke?  My wonderful old maid school teachers helped me  pay attention to things that mattered.   They helped me recognize what matters more than pimping around with drugs.  I was taught  intellectual curiosity needed to be expanded throughout ones lifetime….that physical curiosity had to be controlled.   That is how out-of-date I am.  They tried to make an adult out of me.

I am so grateful….and have been so lucky to have lived in my time.

MY, HOW WE HAVE FALLEN!!!   HOW WE HAVE DECAYED!!! 

How much less we know….and above all and most distressing, how much less we think and do which in some way or another resembles something noble, something actually maningful.

Instead we live in a time where good is ridiculed……and is replaced with the drives to smoke pot and all of what goes with this modern American drive to nurse boredom.   When boredom nurtures boredom, adulthood disappears.

Juveniles smoke pot……and no one on the Dennis Prager show talked one second about  the fact that these snotty nose brats are breaking the law…..They smoke pot because their adults smoke pot, adults in age, but not in mind) ….because these snotty nose adults not in mind,  are breaking the law. 

American society is already so feminized in its culture, it no longer is capable of maintaining, much less defending its civilization…….”Great civilizations are not murdered.  They commit suicide.”

Minnesota Supreme Court to Rule on DNA Use

Did you know there is a DNA issue in our Minnesota?    It has to do with Bigger Government.

Twila Brase sends me material about Health care issues here in Minnesota regularly.  She has conservative persuasions and is president of Citizen’s Council on Health Care, and is a strong advocate of civil liberties.   Ms. Brase  sent me this announcement this morning:

“The Minnesota Supreme Court has announced that it will review the Baby DNA lawsuit filed March 11, 2009 against the Minnesota Department of Health for the State’s collection, storage, use, and sharing of newborn DNA without parent knowledge or consent!

This is GREAT news!

As Randy Knutson, lead attorney for the nine families who filed the lawsuit, says: “The Minnesota Supreme Court has granted review of the case. This is rare, and important. It means that the [MN] Supreme Court has found it to be one of the few cases important enough for it to review and decide. We are confident that the Supreme Court will take a long, hard look at the DNA privacy rights of parents and children, as well as the conduct of the Minnesota Department of Health.”

 

Mr. Knutson has requested our financial support. We need your help to raise $26,000 to underwrite key portions of preparing the case for the Supreme Court hearing.

A win for these nine families will be a win for every Minnesota family. Parents will be able to protect their children from becoming involuntary subjects of government genetic research. Parents will be able to preserve their child’s DNA ownership rights. Parents will be empowered to say no to the government’s DNA grab. A win will also help protect parent and child DNA and privacy rights nationwide.

Please donate $500, $250, $50 or more today! (Write “Baby DNA lawsuit” in the “Add a Designation” section, which is above where you add your credit card info). You can also mail your check to the CCHF address below.

 

Your DNA is your private property. Individual consent for storage, use, analysis and sharing must be obtained at all times, including at birth.

This lawsuit is critical. Your financial support is essential.

And…your gift is tax-deductible! Please give generously (click here)!

Twila

Our America Could Again Become the World’s Source of Energy….(If it weren’t for Democrats)

This  article below was published at the National Center for Policy Analysis:

            “North America:  The New Energy Kingdom”

“The American Petroleum Institute reports that the United States produced more crude oil in October than it has ever produced in a single month.  This reversal of trend helps explain why U.S. domestic production for the year will be 140,000 barrels a day higher than last year (which was 410,000 barrels a day higher than 2008), according to Neil Reynolds.

Could these numbers reflect the beginning of the end for U.S. dependence on Mideast oil?  Well, in fact, they could.  An article last month in the New York Times observed: “Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia.  In addition, the United States has increased domestic oil production for the first time in a generation.”

With rising production from shale fields, the U.S. surpassed Russia last year to become the world’s largest supplier of natural gas, says Reynolds.

• Shale now accounts for 10 percent of the country’s natural gas production — up from 2 percent in 1990.
• Chesapeake Energy’s production from its next Texas project, expected by the end of 2012, will by itself supply the energy equivalent of 500,000 barrels of oil a day.
• The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that the country’s proven reserves of crude rose last year by 9 percent to 22.3 billion barrels.

For natural gas, the United States has the four largest fields in the world.  The EIA reports that proven U.S. reserves of natural gas increased last year by 11 percent to 284 trillion cubic feet — the highest level since 1971.

America will almost certainly emerge as the world’s biggest supplier — and exporter — of reasonably cheap energy, says Reynolds.”

Source: Neil Reynolds, “North America: The New Energy Kingdom,” Globe and Mail, December 9, 2010.

(Comment:   Mr. Reynolds forgets about modern Democrats, those like Barack Hussein Obama who believes Americans are greedy and suffer “from a certain poverty of ambition.”)

For text:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/neil-reynolds/north-america-the-new

Why Is This Clip of Shariah Punishment in Sudan Censored in America?

A few days ago I found a youtube video at HotAir which showed what should be for all civilized peoples, a distrubing act…..in this case an act of Shariah law being practiced in Sudan.   Shortly after this , youtube apparently withdrew the video.  

Why?   Who decided to pull the video?   Shouldn’t all civilized people be allowed to  review social realities of life in the modern world?  How is an American to understand to the fullest, the persuasions, good and bad of  those who practice Islam and the meanings and actions of its jihadists especially at a time when Islam jihadists have declared war against our country?

Below, at least for the moment is the clip which has been pulled from youtube.  It is disturbing…..because in the open air of freedom Shariah law is disturbing and the demands of Islam are distrubing!

Shouldn’t Americans have that right to decide if its culture should return to the religious laws of the 16th  century?

From HotAir:

“They confiscated his equipment. Given that they were trying to suppress coverage from foreign media, the only way I can explain the existence of this clip is that the cops trusted whoever was recording it. Which is to say, it might not have been intended as an expose but as a trophy video, to be circulated either as some sort of quasi-snuff film or as a warning to Sudanese women to knock off the protests pronto. Unbelievable. Needless to say, it’s difficult to watch, so please observe your official content warning.”       Please click here:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/12/15/video-a-flogging-in-sudan/

Unfortunately, although the above site remains, youtube decided to pull this video of the Shariah law beating  in Sudan.  The following explains:  

“The video – which was later removed by YouTube – showed a Sudanese woman crying as she was lashed by two policemen before onlookers in a public place. She was made to kneel, and the police laughed as the punishment was administered.

“Humiliating your women is humiliating all your people,” the protesters shouted as they were detained.

Around 50 women sat down outside the Sudanese justice ministry, holding banners and surrounded by riot police telling them to move.

Three plain-clothed security men threw a BBC correspondent to the ground, confiscating his equipment.

All the women were arrested and taken to a nearby police station. Their lawyers were prevented from entering, but senior opposition politicians were allowed to go inside.

The women said they had tried to get permission for the protest, but had been refused. Police declined to comment.

“The authorities here take the law into their own hands. No one knows what happens inside these police stations,” Mona el-Tijani, a lawyer, said. “This video was just one example of what happens all the time.”

Sudan‘s justice ministry said it would investigate whether the punishment had been administered properly.

It was not clear what offence the woman being lashed had committed. Officials from the ruling National Congress party offered conflicting explanations in the media.

Floggings carried out under Islamic law in Sudan are almost a daily punishment for crimes ranging from drinking alcohol to adultery.

Vague laws on women’s dress and behaviour are implemented inconsistently. One case sparked an international furore when Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese UN official, invited journalists to her public flogging. She had been sentenced for wearing trousers.”