Alert! Mark Dayton’s Obamacare Signing Postponed Till Wednesday, Jan 5!

ObamaCare Protest

DATE: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5 

 PLACE: GOVERNOR’S RECEPTION ROOM, Office of the Governor

DATE: 9:30 a.m. (please arrive by 9:00 a.m. to receive CCHF talking points/stickers)

Room: 130 State Capitol (first floor)

Address: 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, St. Paul, MN 55155

RSVP Requested – email Jenna (jenna@cchfreedom.org)

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton has changed the signing of his Obamacare executive order (E.O.) from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning. He also moved the location to his office. House Speaker Kurt Zellers requested the change because the legislature doesn’t begin until noon on Tuesday.

The executive order will expand government-run health care to another 163,000 Minnesotans and put state taxpayers on the hook for years to come, especially after the Federal matching dollars disappear. 

Gov. Dayton will likely provide remarks to the crowd. Your presence with hand-written signs will speak volumes! (Below – see what TakeAction Minnesota is calling for from their ObamaCare supporters)

Looking forward to seeing your visual opposition to Obamacare’s higher costs, expanded entitlements, and expansion of government-run health care!  Let us know you’re coming!

Twila Brase RN, PHN

President

Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom

1954 University Ave. W, Ste. 8

St. Paul, MN 55104

www.healthcarefreedom.us
651-646-8935

Re-election of Mike Steele as RNC Chairman “all-but-impossible”.

‘Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele faces an all-but-impossible path to reelection this month, as a majority of the RNC’s 168 members indicate that they will not support the controversial chairman for another term. 

A weeklong canvass of the party’s governing board by POLITICO revealed 88 members who have decided not to vote for Steele, either opting to support one of his opponents or simply ruling out Steele as a choice in the race. 

Fifty-five members, some of whom have endorsed one of Steele’s challengers, have signaled that they will not support the chairman under any circumstances. An additional 33 pledged their support elsewhere.

Just as telling, not a single member of the committee said that Steele was their second choice in the race — a grave indicator in a contest likely to be decided in multiple ballots.

Further, whip counts kept by several of the chairman’s opponents suggest the Anybody-but-Steele bloc could be even larger, including as many as 90 to 100 members. 

A winning candidate must gain the support of 85 members of the RNC. 

The RNC chairman’s race, like many congressional leadership battles and student government elections, is a byzantine affair that involves secret commitments and multiple rounds of balloting. 

Some endorsements are only good for one or two ballots. Personal loyalties often reign supreme. And committee members are often reluctant to make their endorsements public because of the risk of backing a losing candidate. 

In order to capture a detailed picture of the chairman’s contest, POLITICO contacted each of the 168 members of the RNC, asking for their first and second choices in the race and whether they would consider supporting Steele. 

Members who wanted to share their choices anonymously were permitted to do so. They were contacted as many as four times via e-mail, and some were sought out by telephone. Nearly all the members counted in the anti-Steele camp confirmed their opposition directly, while a handful were determined by their public remarks or by two or more sources who spoke to those members directly.”

The above article was found at RealClearPolitics written by Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin at Politico.

Comment:   I had hoped he would resign.  I thought he was a good choice to head the RNC.   Pleasant , articulate, alert, neat, Mr. Steele cut a good figure.   Once in the office, however, something happened to common sense.   He acted like a Democrat spending money hither and thither, seemingly to impress friends……that is what it appeared from my distance from those who are ‘in the know’.   There was no leadership for a Party  in crescendo.   Steele seemed to pay no attention to the storms of the day arising from governmental bankruptcies.

He spent money.   And in a debate, he demonstrated he had no idea why justice in the traditions of American culture is BLIND……..blind to wealth, blind to tribe, blind to color, blind to beauty….blind to all except for what is just.   That was an embarrassment.

…….very likely a product of his generation’s college studies.

“The Progressive”: ‘Progressives’ At War Against Public Sector Workers

There are sectors in American politics that believe and behave  leftist of even Barach Hussein Obama.  The “Progressives” at “The Progressive” are among them, attacking Progressives, Schwarzenegger and Cuomo.   It is important to know their claims and claims of proof for their claims.  In almost every instance their language in their claims is creatively untruthful.   Test yourselves in the following article at The Progressive:

“In the ruling class’s endless strategy of divide and conquer, its current tactic of pitting public sector workers against those in the private sector is gaining ground.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used it time and again in California.

Today the New York Times reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo will try to impose a one-year salary freeze on all state workers.

And today, as Wisconsin’s new governor, Scott Walker, is sworn in, state workers are preparing for an assault the likes of which none of them have ever seen before. Walker is threatening to cut wages and take away benefits. And he’s even raised the prospect of making it illegal for state workers to engage in collective bargaining.

This assault on public workers is happening in one state after another around the country.

“This is a concerted, deep attack on public employees and public workers,” Gerald W. McEntee, president of the 1.6-million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), told the Washington Post last month.

The attack is cynical in so many ways.

First, as McEntee noted, “The problem in the economy has not been created by public workers. It was created by Wall Street.”

Second, it’s not as though any public sector workers are getting filthy rich like the Wall Street bankers who got bailed out and are now back to bathing in ridiculous bonuses.

Third, the attack on public sector workers is an attack on the idea that there should be a decent middle class in this country.

If everyone’s wages and benefits have to be reduced to those offered by the stingiest private sector boss, you can kiss the middle class goodbye.

Fourth, the attack is but a thinly disguised thrust against unions. The public sector unionization rate is 36.8 percent; in the private sector, it’s 7.6 percent. Slashing the wages and benefits and rights of public sector workers is a way to delegitimize their unions. And for Republicans, it’s a way to get back at a Democratic power base and fundraising arm.

Finally, attacking public sector workers is bad for the economy. Cutting their wages and benefits will result in less purchasing power overall. The economy is suffering from a lack of demand already. This will just make that worse.

But mainly, it’s a great distraction. Those who rig the system and reward themselves would rather that workers fought among themselves than focused their anger upwards.”

The above article was written by Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive…..”The Cynical War on Public Workers.”

Comment:   This is old-time standard Marxism and American Marxist rhetoric.  “The ruling class, whether Republican or standard Left, is the enemy to all workers, those who word and those who don’t.   This is the group modern American Marxists of the Obama kind would like everyone  to identify as standard Marxists.  The goals are the same.  It’s the people at The Progressive who are more honest about who they are.

America, we have a problem.  In order to secure votes the American Democrat Party  has bribed the Federal Workers’ Union members for years by offering   excessive wages and retirement packages for votes.   Nearly every American federal and state treasuries  are facing insolvency  as a result.  The nation is going bankrupt.   The status quo cannot continue.   Even if the top ten per cent of the nation’s wealthiest were executed  and their wealth confiscated by the State,  a policy already implemented in the history of World Marxism, the nation would remain in fiscal disorder.

Among all Marxists including the Obama clones, any criticims or opposition to anything Marxist is considered a WAR.

The Fall of Greece and the Swindlings of Germany Produce Prosperous Marxism

It’s All Greek to Us

In very un-Icelandic fashion, last week protestors in Athens tried to blow up a downtown courthouse. Over a year after the Hellenic meltdown, the Greek newspapers still reflect the popular fury—protests, strikes, senseless violence—at the mandatory cutbacks, the public sector layoffs, and the high-interest needed to attract investors to shaky Greek bonds. And yet amid the furor, 60% of the public still polls in favor of the European Union. How are we to diagnose the drowning non-swimmer who eagerly grasps—and yet hates—the life preserver?

A bit of story-telling: When I lived in Greece in the 1970s, it was a relatively poor country. The road system was deplorable; the airport at Athens was little more than an insulated warehouse. I usually stayed in hotels with bathrooms down the hall. A bus trip of about 200 miles translated into about a six hour marathon. The buses were often of eastern European make and spewed black smoke into the Athenian air whose toxic bite could devour marble. Rail travel was nightmarish (biking was quicker). There was no bridge across the Gulf of Corinth. The Athens “subway” was little more than a 19th century electric carriage.

Greeks’ second homes were one bedroom village affairs. It was rare to see a Mercedes in Athens. I knew one Greek who had a swimming pool. Getting off an island ferry boat usually meant meeting a swarm of older ladies trying to hawk you their extra bedroom for rent.

You get the picture:1970s Greece reflected a small southern Balkan population wedded to a siesta lifestyle, on a rocky peninsula in which there was little wealth other than tourism, a poorly developed agriculture, some shipping, and remittances from Greek expatriates in the United States and Germany.

Fast forward to the post-Olympics Greece: five star hotels, 20,000 plus private swimming pools (most of them unreported for tax purposes), half the work force ensconced in cushy government or government-related jobs, Attica dotted with Riviera-like second homes, BMWs more common than Mercedeses, billions of euros worth of new highways, and a new airport and subway system.

In other words, somehow a country without a manufacturing base and with poor productivity, a small population, an inefficient statist economy, and bloated public sector suddenly went from near third world status to a standard of living not that much different from a Munich or Amsterdam. How? Did Greek socialism produce all that wealth?

Well, we know the answer: northern European cash—borrowed, given, or swindled. The radical new affluence in part was justified by the fact that Germans and Scandinavians wanted good infrastructure and facilities when they went on their annual summer Greek vacations—along with pan-EU pipe dreams and fraudulent Greek book keeping that disguised massive debt.

Now? Oz is over with and the Greeks are furious at “them.” Furious in the sense that everyone must be blamed except themselves. So they protest and demonstrate that they do not wish to stop borrowing money to sustain a lifestyle that they have not earned—but do not wish to cut ties either with their EU beneficiaries and go it alone as in the 1970s. So they rage against reality.

California Got What It Wanted

The same is true of California. Our elites liked the idea of stopping new gas and oil extraction, shutting down the nuclear power industry, freezing state east-west freeways, strangling the mining and timber industries, cutting off water to agriculture in the Central Valley, diverting revenues from fixing roads and bridges to redistributive entitlements, and praising the new multicultural state that would welcome in half the nation’s 11-15 million illegal aliens. Better yet, the red-state-minded “they” (the nasty upper one-percent who stole from the rest of us due to their grasping but superfluous businesses) began to leave at the rate of 3,000 a week, ensuring the state a Senator Barbara Boxer into her nineties.

Yes, we are proud that we have changed the attitude, lifestyle, and demography of the state, made it “green,”and have the highest paid public employees and the most generous welfare system—and do not have to soil our hands with nasty things like farming, oil production, or nuclear power. And now we are broke. Our infrastructure is crumbling and an embarrassment. My environs is known as “Zimbabwe” or “Appalachia” for its new third-world look that followed from about the highest unemployment and lowest per capita income in the nation. Again, thanks to the deep South, our schools are not quite last in reading and math. So of course, like the Greeks, we are mad at somebody other than ourselves. Californians are desperate for a “them” fix. But who is them? “Them” either left, is leaving, or has been shut down.

Consumers are furious at spiking gas and food prices, and the collapse of state revenues. The illegal alien cadre is furious that there are cutbacks in their entitlements. The Latino community says that it cannot support anyone who wants to close the border and opposes amnesty. The public employees are furious in Greek-like fashion at the thought of cuts to pensions and lay-offs. The professors and UC administrators are either suing the state or turning on each other. Where are a few hundred Bill Gates and Warren Buffetts who would gladly pay more in taxes for the rest of us from their ill-gotten gains?

The Statist Religion

What strikes me is not that leftism does not work, but that when it is indulged and doesn’t work, its beneficiaries scream at the unfairness of it all—in the fashion that a theorist who claimed 2 plus 2 equals 5 blames the construct of mathematics because his equation is not true. Why don’t Germans just give Greeks the hundreds of billions of euros that they “owe” them?

The green lobby got all it wanted—subsidies, insider dealers, fame, money, influence. And then came Climategate, the multimillionaire Al Gore’s personal and professional meltdown, the coldest, iciest, and snowiest winters in memory, all the false warnings about record hurricanes and tsunamis becoming the new norm, the Orwellian metamorphosizing nomenclature (global warming begat climate change that is now begetting “climate chaos”).

Gorism is becoming a permanent fixture of late night comedians. When the New York Times keeps publishing op-eds about how record cold proves record global warming, the world wonders: what would record heat prove?

But whom to blame? The bad earth that is not boiling this winter? Right-wing zealots who cannot comprehend that very cold proves very hot. Red-state yahoos that don’t understand the brilliance of cap and trade? Broke governments that did not subsidize enough green power, green farming, and green energy?

The New Liberal Age

By January 2009, I was reading brilliant new books promising an end to conservatism, a new 50-year-old liberal ascendancy, the final triumph of John Maynard Keynes, and of course the apotheosis of the omnipresent “god” Barack Obama. By May 2009 we were lectured that the nascent tea party was an Astroturf fake movement, then a racist dangerous movement with Nazi undertones, and then a splinter nihilist know-nothing movement without political consequences.

By November 2010, all the above vanished in a blink. Furor followed from the Left that Obama was not a Great Stone Face savior, that the tea party was all too real, that the conservatives were back, and that liberalism had suffered its worst electoral defeat since 1938. How can all this be? Whom to blame?

Inconvenient Truths

Yet why not carry on with the progressive agenda? Would not the Greeks be happier if the Germans said, “Sorry, we won’t loan you anything at any interest rate, so please by all means riot all you wish”?

Would Californians be happier if we let in, say, 10 million more illegal aliens, and shut down east-side San Joaquin Valley water deliveries as well to save far more fishlets than just the smelt? Are not we still discriminating against transsexual and transgendered in the military? Why is there not diversity/affirmative action redress for underrepresented gay officers? Why are not these legitimate questions?

Cannot liberals press on with their dream and insist on amnesty, go for single-payer health care, lobby for a 50% income tax rate on higher incomes? If spring is delayed by frost and snow this year into June or July, would that even more so prove the case for global warming? Will Al Gore make another film, A Really Really Inconvenient Truth?

In short, there is no “them” who wrecked Greece, ruined California, subverted the climate change movement, sidetracked a half century of liberalism to come, or discredited mega-deficit spending.

“Them” you see is simply a shorthand for “I got what I wanted, and I am mad at someone or something for not allowing the world to become what I think it should have been.”

The above article was written by Victor Davis Hanson at Pajamas Media.    Title is “Raging Against ‘Them'”.

Nick Kristof Worries about Melancholy of the Soul, Stunning Inequality, Drugs and Violence

……so redistribute the wealth and drugs, violence, so  melancholy of the soul will disappear.    Increase Taxes!  Make  the wealthy pay!

Nicholas Kristof, author of the piece below has been on my list of loonies for years.  He writes his dreams as a sweet person.   He has written as a dedicated Marxist for all the years I have spent time reading his columns at the New York Times, believing that what is bad in life is caused by lack of money.   Just a hand out here and welfare over there swiping from those he believes earn too much money and sadness will disappear.   He never mentions that 45% of Americans pay no federal income tax whatsoever.

I believe Nicholas Kristof is over paid.  I might be able to pay off my enormous business debt if I could tax him at a higher rate, but I am not convinced I am  a sad soul if he doesn’t come to my rescue.

Mr. Kristof is crippled, however.  He lives in the New York City environs.   What would he ever know about someone’s soul?    The title for his piece of dream of the moment, is “Equality, a True Soul Food.”    I wonder if knows that statistics regarding charity indicate Lefties which include  those in the New York Time employ, are huge cheapskates, they are so full of soul.

Here is…..”Equality, a True Soul Food.”….by Nicholas Kristof:

“John Steinbeck observed that “a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”

That insight, now confirmed by epidemiological studies, is worth bearing in mind at a time of such polarizing inequality that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

There’s growing evidence that the toll of our stunning inequality is not just economic but also is a melancholy of the soul. The upshot appears to be high rates of violent crime, high narcotics use, high teenage birthrates and even high rates of heart disease.

That’s the argument of an important book by two distinguished British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. They argue that gross inequality tears at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrust and an array of mental and physical ailments — and they cite mountains of data to support their argument.

“If you fail to avoid high inequality, you will need more prisons and more police,” they assert. “You will have to deal with higher rates of mental illness, drug abuse and every other kind of problem.” They explore these issues in their book, “The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.”

The heart of their argument is that humans are social animals and that in highly unequal societies those at the bottom suffer from a range of pathologies. For example, a long-term study of British civil servants found that messengers, doormen and others with low status were much more likely to die of heart disease, suicide and some cancers and had substantially worse overall health.

There’s similar evidence from other primates. For example, macaque monkeys are also highly social animals, and scientists put them in cages and taught them how to push a lever so that they could get cocaine. Those at the bottom of the monkey hierarchy took much more cocaine than high-status monkeys.

Other experiments found that low-status monkeys suffered physical problems, including atherosclerosis in their arteries and an increase in abdominal fat. And as with monkeys, so with humans. Researchers have found that when people become unemployed or suffer economic setbacks, they gain weight. One 12-year study of American men found that when their income slipped, they gained an average of 5.5 pounds.

The correlation is strong around the world between countries with greater inequality and greater drug use. Paradoxically, countries with more relaxed narcotics laws, like the Netherlands, have relatively low domestic drug use — perhaps because they are more egalitarian.

Professors Wilkinson and Pickett crunch the numbers and show that the same relationship holds true for a range of social problems. Among rich countries, those that are more unequal appear to have more mental illness, infant mortality, obesity, high school dropouts, teenage births, homicides, and so on.

They find the same thing is true among the 50 American states. More unequal states, like Mississippi and Louisiana, do poorly by these social measures. More equal states, like New Hampshire and Minnesota, do far better.

So why is inequality so harmful? “The Spirit Level” suggests that inequality undermines social trust and community life, corroding societies as a whole. It also suggests that humans, as social beings, become stressed when they find themselves at the bottom of a hierarchy.

That stress leads to biological changes, such as the release of the hormone cortisol, and to the accumulation of abdominal fat (perhaps an evolutionary adaptation in preparation for starvation ahead?). The result is physical ailments like heart disease, and social ailments like violent crime, mutual distrust, self-destructive behaviors and persistent poverty. Another result is the establishment of alternative systems in which one can win respect and acquire self-esteem, such as gangs.

Granted, humans are not all equal in ability: There will always be some who are more wealthy — and others who constitute the bottom. But inequality does not have to be as harsh, oppressive and polarized as it is in America today. Germany and Japan have attained modern, efficient economies with far less inequality than we have — and far fewer social problems. Likewise, the gap between rich and poor fell during the Clinton administration, according to data cited in “The Spirit Level,” even though that was a period of economic vigor.

“Inequality is divisive, and even small differences seem to make an important difference,” Professors Wilkinson and Pickett note. They suggest that it is not just the poor who benefit from the social cohesion that comes with equality, but the entire society.

So as we debate national policy in 2011 — from the estate tax to unemployment insurance to early childhood education — let’s push to reduce the stunning levels of inequality in America today. These inequities seem profoundly unhealthy, for us and for our nation’s soul.”

Comment:  Lefties such as Nicholas love to pick up tattle from this and that professor and pass it off as great truth and discovery.  Perhaps Lefties would feel better about equality if everyone took the same doses of cocaine (by force, of course, if necessary.)   If everyone is equally drugged, maybe this act of Marxism would satisfy them.   No one would have any discipline, memory and energy to do more …..everyone will accomplish much less…..then the melancholy of soul should disappear?

Islam’s World of Intimidation and Tyranny Is On The March!

The following article was written by Debra Saunders at the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Intimidation and Tyranny”

“While WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is celebrating his $1 million-plus book deal on a 600-acre estate and enjoying his status as a lefty fringe hero, former cartoonist Molly Norris is in hiding.

The moral of this column is that in today’s world, cartoons, if they target Islam, can be more hazardous to your health than crossing the mighty U.S. government and its allies.

Swedish and Danish authorities arrested four suspected militant Islamic jihadists last week for allegedly planning a terrorist attack before this weekend. Their target was the Jyllands-Posten news bureau in Copenhagen. In 2006, the newspaper became the target of terrorist threats after it printed controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. Authorities say the suspects arrested planned to use the same “swarm” tactics used in the 2008 Mumbai killing spree that left at least 160 people dead.

Kurt Westergaard drew a cartoon that depicted Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Last January, a Somali man wielding an ax and demanding “revenge” broke into Westergaard’s home. In 2009, Danish authorities arrested three men for planning to behead Westergaard.

Like Westergaard, Jyllands-Posten Editor Flemming Rose, who commissioned the cartoons, now has round-the-clock security. I asked via e-mail how many planned attacks against his paper and cartoonists have been thwarted.

Rose answered that this latest episode represents the sixth or seventh foiled attack.

In his new book, “Tyranny of Silence,” Rose explains that he asked cartoonists to submit works on Muhammad in order to stand up to “my perception of prevalent self-censorship among the Danish media” on the subject of radical Islam. Now he has a target on his back.

When we met in 2008, Rose summarized what summed up “The Cartoon Crisis.” “They are basically saying, ‘If you say we are violent, we are going to kill you.'”

And: “If you give in to intimidation, you will not get less intimidation, you will get more intimidation.”

Back to Molly Norris. In April, the one-time Seattle Weekly cartoonist made the mistake of drawing a cartoon that called for an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day.” Norris was reacting to Comedy Central’s decision to censor parts of the show “South Park” that depicted a cartoon Muhammad dressed in a bear suit — wink, wink — lest showing an image of the prophet offend. The network also bleeped out verbal references to Muhammad.

Norris quickly renounced the idea and apologized to the Muslim community. But that didn’t stop American-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki from declaring that that Norris should be “a prime target of assassination.” Al-Awlaki, you may recall, has been linked to the attempted Times Square bombing, last year’s failed Christmas Day bombing on a Detroit-bound plane, and the Fort Hood shootings that left 13 dead.

At the FBI’s urging, Norris changed her name and wiped her identity.

As for “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, they didn’t like Comedy Central’s decision to censor their material. To their credit, they risked the wrath of extremists, who made veiled death threats against them.

But they thrive in a system that perpetuates a double standard. Stone and Parker are now working on a new Broadway musical, “The Book of Mormon.” In reporting on the musical, Newsday called them “scamps” and “the wonderful troublemakers of ‘South Park.'”

Those aren’t the sort of terms reserved for Rose, who became something of an international pariah for doing to Islam once what Parker and Stone do regularly to devout Christians. The “South Park” guys know that they can make fun of Mormons without fear of censorship from upstairs or fatwas from abroad.”

“This new year will bring the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “Since Sept. 11, 2001, at least 30 planned terrorist attacks have been foiled, all but two of them prevented by law enforcement,” a Heritage Foundation paper reported in April. And that was before Faisal Shahzad failed to set off a car bomb in Times Square.

As for 2010, it ended with arrests in London, Denmark, Sweden and a suicide bombing in Stockholm.

We don’t know the names of the intelligence operatives and law enforcement officials who saved innocent lives by uncovering and stopping these plots, but they are the unsung heroes of the last decade.

As for Assange, his leaks “have made it much harder for those who are stopping attacks to do their jobs,” according to former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow. “The countries we rely on for information must increasingly be unwilling to share it with us for fear that it will be exposed in the next set of leaks. Next time an attack is successful, those who are applauding WikiLeaks today will give not a second’s thought that they contributed to it.”

Q…Why Do Democrats Oppose Voter Photo IDs? Ans….Voter Fraud Helps Elect Democrats

The following article was sent in by Mark Waldeland.  It is written by Kent Kaiser and was published at TwinCities.com:

“There’s one thing that the 2010 election and the recent recount in the governor’s race made clear: It’s time to stop arguing about whether we should institute photo ID for voting and time to start discussing how best to implement it.

Readers might have heard about how the “reconciliation” process became a point of contention in the recount. With a photo ID system, coupled with the electronic poll books that photo ID would allow us to use, this issue would go away. There would be no extra “voter receipts” floating around, and voters would receive their “receipts” or ballots only after showing and swiping their photo IDs.

Readers might also have heard about how county officials are having difficulty adding all of the voter registration cards from Election Day into the voter database in a timely fashion — this is a major problem after every election in our state. Again, with a photo ID system, this issue would go away. Upon arriving at the polling place, un-registered voters would simply swipe their photo ID cards to populate the fields in the state’s computerized voter registration system (rather than writing out a card to be data-entered later). In this way, implementing photo ID for voting would save counties tens of thousands of dollars — an estimated $25,000 to $45,000 per election in Hennepin County alone — and would eliminate data-entry errors that result in misspellings, double entries, and more.

Additional benefits to instituting photo ID for voting include reducing and perhaps eliminating lines on Election Day and increasing voter privacy, as voters would not have to say their names aloud to get a ballot. The problem of voters inadvertently voting in the wrong precinct would go away. Also, we would save thousands of pounds of paper (and a lot of money) by not having to print voter rosters for the polling places.

And, of course, instituting photo ID for voting would increase election integrity as well.

During the last legislative session, a vote on photo ID enjoyed bipartisan support in the Minnesota House, though the measure was blocked from being heard by DFL leaders in the state Senate. This year, many candidates for the state Legislature campaigned on the issue of photo ID, and it was noted in the media to be the biggest applause-getter at political gatherings. It was also the only issue that governor candidate Tom Emmer mentioned in his concession speech this month.

A Rasmussen poll this past summer found that 82 percent of people — an overwhelming, bipartisan majority — favored photo ID for voting, and only 14 percent disagreed. Of course, there are anti-reform special interests such as ACORN derivatives, Common Cause, and Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota who will pretend that our antiquated system is adequate and try to oppose the inevitable.

Yet, with pro-photo-ID majorities in both the House and Senate, it is a safe prediction that the reform will be passed, no matter what the governor thinks of it — perhaps even as a constitutional amendment presented to the voters. If anti-reform legislators or the governor try to stand in the way, pro-reform legislators will certainly find a way to get it passed.

Given that, there are some options on implementation that should be discussed sooner rather than later.

There will be options on how to equip citizens with IDs. It probably makes sense to give state ID cards to voters who can’t afford them — a side benefit being that it would help them function in other aspects of daily life.

There will be some difficult scenarios, like those experienced by overseas absentee voters and nursing home residents, which will have to be addressed.

There will also be options on the technology to use with photo ID. Electronic poll books interface with photo IDs essentially in the way Minnesotans are accustomed to when they purchase fishing and hunting licenses. One of the best, most versatile options for the electronic poll books is Minnesota’s own Datacard Group; estimates predict a positive return-on-investment in only three years.

The implementation of photo ID for voting is long overdue and worth applauding. Minnesota has an opportunity to have a great election system once again and we should get our plan in place.

Kent Kaiser, Ph.D., is a faculty member at Northwestern College in St. Paul and a senior fellow at the Minneapolis-based Center of the American Experiment think tank.”

Comment:  You might ask the question why Republicans haven’t demanded Voter photo IDs in the past.  I believe the answer in general is the same why Republicans have been so silent for the past generation while the American Left has transformed the nation and its culture into the mess in which we find ourselves today.  They had asked with the same tone as “Mommy, may I have a cookie?”

They would make enough noise so their constituencies back home knew that weren’t actually Progressives, but they never knew who they were, but were afraid to  be called “conservative”.

The Marxist dictionaries handed out at university have made “conservative” a nasty word, so Republicans have curled up into dark corners as a result.

Lt. General W. G. Boykin Worries About Marxism in America

The following video was sent to my by Arlene Taber.    

Warning:   The remarks made on this video are those of a military officer, retired.  It has long been held by the academic Leftwing  in America, and therefore taught to our young, that this section of the American voter is a dangerous one.   Therefore, those from a military background should not be allowed to express their views in public.   Click on at your own intellectual peril:

http://www.morningstartv.com/oak-initiative/marxism-america?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10-28-2010

“Death by Ignorance”, by Howard Nemerov at Pajamas Media

“When the education system and military fail, what will you do?

The Associated Press recently reported:

Nearly one-fourth [23%] of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can’t answer basic math, science and reading questions, according to a new study released Tuesday.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said:

Too many of our high school students are not graduating ready to begin college or a career — and many are not eligible to serve in our armed forces. I am deeply troubled by the national security burden created by America’s underperforming education system.

Two major federal government agencies admit that:

Our children are not receiving a quality education;

Our military is at risk of failing to provide for our defense.

Government threatens our national security through its inability to provide services paid for by our taxes.

Some folks persist with the myth that government will fix itself, but the Supreme Court defines another reality.

DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services

A young boy experienced “a series of beatings by his father,” and filed multiple complaints with county social services. They repeatedly left the boy with his father, who “finally beat him so severely that he suffered permanent brain damage, and was rendered profoundly retarded,” resulting in a law suit against the county. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled:

• “A State’s failure to protect an individual against private violence … imposes no duty on the State to provide members of the general public with adequate protective services.”
• “There is no merit to petitioner’s contention that the State’s knowledge of his danger and expressions of willingness to protect him against that danger established a ‘special relationship’ giving rise to an affirmative constitutional duty to protect.”

Town of Castle Rock, Colorado v. Gonzales

A mother of three young children obtained a restraining order against her violent estranged husband. He kidnapped and murdered the children, after which she sued the police department. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled:

• Police services are a government “benefit” that is not legally obligated to protect victims.
• Restraining orders create no special relationship with police entitling victims to protection.

In addition, the Supreme Court is yet another government entity that has declared that they have no legal requirement to function in your best interest.

The Department of Education (DOE) spends over $160B of our tax dollars: $63.7B in discretionary appropriations plus $96.8B in “bailout” money. There are additional billions spent by states, and billions more in property taxes for local school districts. (For example, the Texas Education Agency spent about $26B in 2009.)

The AP article reported that 25% of high school graduates are obese, making them ineligible for military service. This affords an opportunity to highlight one of the most successful functions of government: the opportunity to exploit crises in order to expand.

Some of the blame for child obesity rests with the public school system. For years, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has been remonstrating about unhealthy foods in school vending machines. Poor eating leads to obesity, which, according to the National Institutes of Health, causes illnesses like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and osteoarthritis. (Here’s another federal bureaucracy pointing out the public education system’s general failure to help our children.)

Sixth time’s the charm?

For two years, the Obama administration “voiced their support for healthier school food,” but they and the Democratic-controlled Congress didn’t accomplish anything until the last minute. In March 2009, CSPI announced that Democrats were taking action to improve children’s nutrition in public schools: California Representative Lynn Woolsey’s new bill — H.R. 1324, the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2009 – “would get junk foods out of schools once and for all.” It died in subcommittee.*

In May 2009, New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman introduced S. 1060, the Obesity Prevention, Treatment, and Research Act of 2009, stating: “Food and beverage advertisers are estimated to spend [up to $12B] per year to target children and youth.” It died in committee.

In June 2009, Representative Joe Sestak authored H.R. 2690, the School Meal Enhancement Act of 2009. It died in committee.

The same month, Colorado Senator Bill Bennett offered S. 1293, the Enhancing Child Health with Automatic School Meal Enrollment Act of 2009. It died in committee.

In September 2009, CSPI supported legislation by New York Representative Carolyn McCarthy addressing their concerns over junk food in schools. McCarthy’s H.R. 5431, the Start Healthy Habits Early Act, died in subcommittee.

It wasn’t until December 2010, curiously after voters fired the Democrats in the November elections, that S. 3307, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, became law. This allegedly will address vending machine in schools. However, while there appears to be broad support for addressing childhood obesity, most Americans oppose food bans and don’t think it’s the government’s business to regulate what we eat. Considering the history of failure and the utter lack of accountability consistently affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, such skepticism is justified.

Meanwhile, rather than wait for government to do something, many school districts made improvements. For example, a University of Minnesota study found that 330 public school districts had been offering healthy food for the last five years and “did not see a falloff in demand.” This highlights the benefits of local control, where schools respond to their tax-paying constituents.

All this political drama over school nutrition serves to distract constituents from the fact that public schools fail to educate. But it does create an opportunity to grow the DOE: More laws to implement and enforce means more personnel, more office space, computers, etc. The projected 2011 DOE budget is about $3B higher, perhaps reflecting this fact. Considering this process of transferring your wealth and power to the government, it’s reasonable to expect an eventual expansion of this program to include punishing parents who don’t get with the new program. After all, it’s for the children.

From 1990-2006, Agribusiness spent 31% of their total campaign contributions on Democrats ($120M out of $392M). For the 2008 and 2010 cycles, this increased to 39% ($22M of $57M). Also, since passage of McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform in 2002, Democrats have garnered an increasing share of business contributions, 55.9% in 2008 and 55.6% in 2010.

This is all further evidence that the government has no obligation to serve you — though they seem to do well by their corporate donors — because there are no consequences  for failing the people. Perhaps it’s time to inject free market dynamics via school choice? Capitalism’s built-in feedback system of mutual self-interest between buyers and sellers offers a chance to enforce consequences via profit and loss.”

Comment:   How many millions of American youth graduate from high school and have nearly no understanding of any of the class topics offered to them in public school curricula?   Who, indeed, is responsible?

Is it better to be dumb than fat?   The Obama administration seem certain that it.   Consider  where it places its concern, and therefore tax payer money….funding diets for the belly or for the mind?

Governor Mark Dayton to Celebrate Obamacare January 5!

Twila Brase, president of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom requests your attendance!

 

Come to Obamacare Protest!  Bring Signs!

WHAT: On Wednesday, January 5th at 9:30 a.m. Governor Mark Dayton is holding a special Obamacare signing ceremony to implement the federal law’s Medicaid expansion program. 

WHY PROTEST: The Medicaid expansion program funded by $1.4 billion federal taxpayer dollars will cost the State (YOU) $188 million in state taxpayer dollars. Federal dollars eventually disappear leaving Minnesota on the hook for all the newly entitled. The program is expected to increase Minnesota’s Medicaid population by 21% (163,000 people) – see chart below.  Other states have sued to stop the Obamacare Medicaid expansion mandate…Governor Dayton plans to implement it.

PLEASE COME: One legislator I was speaking with hopes there will be 100 protestors in the Rotunda. Dayton is planning to be surrounded by supporters. Your presence will tell a different story. NOTE: if anyone from the media approaches you, please talk in a very respectable manner. We’ll distribute talking points for your use.

Let us know if you’ll be coming. Email Jenna Minegar with your name, approx. number of people coming and phone number (in case the location changes): jenna@cchfreedom.org

DATE:   – Wednesday, January 5, 2011

PLACE –  Rotunda (1st floor), Minnesota State Capitol 

MEET AT – Room 123 (same floor as rotunda)

ARRIVE BY  – 9:10 a.m. if possible. Jenna and I will be by Room 123 of the Capitol near the Rotunda starting at 9:00 a.m. with talking points – if you can help hand them out let us know (jenna@cchfreedom.org)

PARKING – Bring lots of quarters to park on the street or in parking lots near the State Capitol.

SIGNING CEREMONY  – 9:30 a.m.

ADDRESS  – 75 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd, St. Paul, MN 55155