The Problem with the Supreme Court Decision

Here’s my two cents…

1. The Obama administration sold ObamaCare to the American people as a penalty because selling it as a tax would have doomed it.
2. When they arrived before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration switched strategies and sold ObamaCare to them as a tax because they knew that a penalty would almost certainly be a violation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
3. This was a pre-meditated strategy by the Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress. In other words, they lied to the American people to get ObamaCare passed.
4. Chief Justice Roberts agreed with the Obama administration’s bait and switch strategy, even rewriting the legislation’s language for them so that it read as a tax and not as a penalty as it was originally submitted to the court. That is judicial activism at its worst from the highest court in the land and from the highest judge in the land.
5. America now has a legal precedent, affirmed by the Supreme Court, which states that the Federal Government may tax you for not doing something – actually anything – which has given Congress unlimited power to regulate any and all aspects of your life. All they have to do is pass the legislation and make non-compliance a taxable event.
6. All of the above comes to you compliments of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court...a man nominated by so-called conservative Republican George W. Bush.  

Ron Garland 

When You're Faking a Phone Call...

Talk into the correct end of the phone!

Another Point of View on the Roberts Decision

Why Chief Justice Roberts Made the Right Long-Term Decision With ObamaCare

BERT ATKINSON JR. JUNE 28, 2012 3:59 PM

Before you look to do harm to Chief Justice Roberts or his family, it’s important that you think carefully about the meaning – the true nature — of his ruling on Obama-care. The Left will shout that they won, that Obama-care was upheld and all the rest. Let them.

It will be a short-lived celebration.

Here’s what really occurred — payback. Yes, payback for Obama’s numerous, ill-advised and childish insults directed toward SCOTUS.

Chief Justice Roberts actually ruled the mandate, relative to the commerce clause, was unconstitutional. That’s how the Democrats got Obama-care going in the first place. This is critical. His ruling means Congress can’t compel American citizens to purchase anything. Ever. The notion is now officially and forever, unconstitutional. As it should be.

Next, he stated that, because Congress doesn’t have the ability to mandate, it must, to fund Obama-care, rely on its power to tax. Therefore, the mechanism that funds Obama-care is a tax. This is also critical. Recall back during the initial Obama-care battles, the Democrats called it a penalty, Republicans called it a tax. Democrats consistently soft sold it as a penalty. It went to vote as a penalty. Obama declared endlessly, that it was not a tax, it was a penalty. But when the Democrats argued in front of the Supreme Court, they said ‘hey, a penalty or a tax, either way’. So, Roberts gave them a tax. It is now the official law of the land — beyond word-play and silly shenanigans. Obama-care is funded by tax dollars. Democrats now must defend a tax increase to justify the Obama-care law.

Finally, he struck down as unconstitutional, the Obama-care idea that the federal government can bully states into complying by yanking their existing medicaid funding. Liberals, through Obama-care, basically said to the states — ‘comply with Obama-care or we will stop existing funding.’ Roberts ruled that is a no-no. If a state takes the money, fine, the Feds can tell the state how to run a program, but if the state refuses money, the federal government can’t penalize the state by yanking other funding. Therefore, a state can decline to participate in Obama-care without penalty. This is obviously a serious problem. Are we going to have 10, 12, 25 states not participating in “national” health-care? Suddenly, it’s not national, is it?

Ultimately, Roberts supported states rights by limiting the federal government’s coercive abilities. He ruled that the government can not force the people to purchase products or services under the commerce clause and he forced liberals to have to come clean and admit that Obama-care is funded by tax increases.

Although he didn’t guarantee Romney a win, he certainly did more than his part and should be applauded.

And he did this without creating a civil war or having bricks thrown threw his windshield. Oh, and he’ll be home in time for dinner.

Brilliant.

This article, written by I.M. Citizen, gives a much different perspective of Justice Robert’s decision. Comment below and let us know what you think. Also check out I.M. Citizen’s blog - quite interesting.

Why All My Ex's Live in Texas

Wayne Allen Root

Jun 27, 2012

Not only do my ex’s live in Texas, but your ex’s, and pretty much everyone else’s ex’s as well. All of America is moving to Texas. Especially the ex-residents of high tax states like California and New York. And, I'll betmany of the ex-residents of Big Brother tax and spend Massachusetts, Illinois and Michigan are there too. 

The fact is Texas led the nation in net population growth for the past decade, while New York and California led the nation in net population loss. Interestingly, the most new Texans (over 550,000) came from one state- California. They brought with them a remarkable $14.3 billion inincome, but even that paled to the almost $1 trillion in assets and income that re-located New Yorkers brought to the Lone Star State. 

From 2000 to 2010 a staggering 3.4 million people moved out of New York resulting in a net loss of 1.3 million residents. California was a close second with a net population loss of 1.2 million during the same decade. 

So why is everyone running for their lives from New York and California? And why are so many of them heading to Texas? The answer is taxes, regulations, and quality of life. Americans have figured out that high taxes and excessive regulations kill jobs and quality of life. People simply want to have more opportunity for success and keep more of the money they work so hard to earn. 

It’s no coincidence that New York has ranked first or second in the nation for tax burden every year since 1977. That includes state income taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes. There is also gas tax of a whopping 49 cents per gallon, and the highest estate and gift taxes in the nation. After grabbing more of your money than any state while you’re alive, New York also steals more of your money after you’re dead. I should know- I left New York 25 years ago and never looked back.

California now ranks first (ie worst) for highest state income tax. Add to that the mantle of worst state in the nation for excessive rules and regulations. It’s no wonder the Milken Institute ranks California as having the worst business environment in the nation. I shouldknow- I left California too. 

Lest you think this is some kind of fluke, or that taxes are not the determining factor in this “escape from NY and California,” it isn’t just Texas that is gaining all these fleeing residents. The U.S. Census reported that all of the top 15 states for population growth during the past decade are no tax or low tax states like Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Utah, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. It seems Americans are smarter than politicians give them credit for- they are voting with their feet for lowertaxes, pro business attitude, and more economic freedom. 

Because no state in the union has a better economy, let’s look "up close and personal" at the Texas miracle. Texas practices what I proudly call “Wild West Cowboy Capitalism.” And it works! 

Texas has zero state income tax, zero capital gains taxes, and zero death taxes. It is a “right to work” state where employees may choose to join a union, but are never forced to. It is pro business and anti-lawyer (discouraging class action lawsuits and the first state to pass a “Loser Pays” law). Texas is also tight-fisted with welfare and entitlement benefits- unlike New York and California. The result of this limited government attitude is people with high incomes, assets, and ambition are moving into Texas, while those who lack work ethic, and feel entitled to handouts are moving out. Good riddance. 

But the most important attribute of Texas is that its constitution limits the time that politicians can meet. The Texas Legislature is limited to meeting only 4 months every other year. That pretty much explains everything. Texas and my state of Nevada have no state income taxes and the fastest growing populations in America…not in spite of, but because the politicians aren't allowed to sit in their seats all year long thinking of new ways to re-distribute income, impede business, and destroy jobs. 

Let’s look at the remarkable results of favoring hard working job-creators over entitlement addicts, and business owners over lawyers. Texas now has more Fortune 500 headquarters than New York. It tied for the highest state economic growth in America over the past 50 years, while displacing New York as the second largest state economy. The annual Texas economy has passed $1 trillion, accounting for 8.3% of the entire U.S. economy. In the last three years one third of all jobs in America were created in Texas, and in the past decade, more jobs were created in Texas than in the other 49 states COMBINED. 

One smart businessman, Andrew Puzder, sums it up. Mr. Puzder, CEO of California-based CKE Restaurants with over 3000 restaurants including Carl’s Jr. and Hardees was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal. He calls his home state of California “the most business-unfriendly state…” Opening one of his restaurants in California takes 2 years and costs $200,000 more than opening one in Texas, where it takes only 6 weeks. Is it a surprise that CKE has stopped opening new restaurants in California, but plans to open 300 in Texas? 

So there you have it. Now you know why everyone’s ex’s live in Texas (or soon will), and why businesses, as well as people, choose states that treat them better, give them more freedom, and allow them to keep more of their own money. Imagine that? The results of smaller government, restrained politicians and lower taxes is dramatically increased wealth, happier citizens with a higher quality of life, and far higher job creation. 

PS. My Texas friends want everyone to know, “Come on down, ya’ll are welcome. Just leave your liberal politics at home.”

http://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2012/06/27/why_all_my_exs_live_in_texas/page/full/#

The Supreme Court's Surprise

John Steele Gordon

06.28.2012 - 11:20 AM

Well, the Supreme Court, as it has so often before, surprised nearly everybody. Most people thought Justice Kennedy was the pivotal vote. He wasn’t. He thought the whole Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, as did Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas. The four liberal justices would have upheld the whole act. It was Chief Justice Roberts who made all the difference, and his idiosyncratic reasoning will have profound constitutional implications far beyond ObamaCare. Here are three, a distinctly mixed bag.

1) He limited federal power under the Commerce Clause. It is not constitutional to require people to buy a product. The clause is limited to regulating commerce that is, not commerce the government wants to see. That’s a big deal, because had the requirement been upheld, the power of the federal government under the Commerce Clause would have become essentially unlimited. As was pointed out in oral argument, you could be required to buy broccoli.

2) He greatly expanded the taxing power. Never before that I know of, has a federal tax been placed on inactivity. If you buy something, you pay a sales tax. If you earn income, you pay an income tax. If you do business as a corporation, you pay an excise tax. Now, if you don’t buy health insurance, you pay a tax on not doing so. What else then can be taxed? Not exercising? Not eating broccoli? Not agreeing with the president?

3) He considerably limited federal power over the states. The Tenth Amendment has been largely a dead letter for decades, declared a mere truism. (In which case, why did the Founding Fathers include it?) But Roberts ruled that while the federal government can tie strings to federal money given to the states—in this case additional Medicaid funds—it cannot coerce the states by threatening to take away other funds unless its will is complied with. This is a tactic the federal government has been using for years to, in effect, make states mere administrative districts of the federal government. For instance, it forced the states to adopt 21-to-drink laws or face the loss of federal highway funds. Roberts is arguing that the states are, indeed, sovereign within their own sphere. That is also a big deal.

Judging by the signs being carried, the overwhelming majority of the crowd outside the Court this morning was anti-ObamaCare. With the upholding of the mandate, ObamaCare survives. For now. But I suspect the already energized anti-Obama forces in this year’s election will now be supercharged. The only way to get rid of this deeply pernicious piece of legislation will be to get rid of Obama. Requiring all candidates for federal office to sign a promise to repeal ObamaCare as a precondition of support would be a starter.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/28/supreme-court-surprise-obamacare/

George Soros: Godfather of the Left

The media often talk about left-wing billionaire George Soros – especially his investments and his charity work. But those same news stories seldom give a complete picture of the man behind many of the liberal or “progressive” organizations in the United States and around the world.

Soros has amassed monumental wealth ($20 billion according to Forbes), but he has used much of that money to underwrite political operations, liberal higher education and an international organization that makes him one of the most powerful and influential men in the world. It has also made him among the most hated, not that the U.S. news media report on that. In fact, the American media seldom tell anything about Soros’s problems abroad or his hard-left agenda here at home. Some of the low points all-but ignored by the media include his $3 million fine for insider trading in France and how he operates his “own foreign policy” that often goes against U.S. interests. 

The Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute has undertaken more than a year of investigation into George Soros, his business dealings, his political involvement and his extensive connections to the media. That investigation shows that much of the more than $8.5 billion Soros has given to charity has in turned been used to advocate for hardcore left-wing policies around the globe. Those findings include:

• $400 Million to Manipulate Higher Education: Journalists who thought the Koch brothers were dominating college funding with a mere $7 million should check out Soros. He’s given more than 50 times more and even helped establish his own university, Central European University, which teaches his own bizarre political/social philosophy of “open society.”
• Global Scandals Largely Unreported: Soros has admitted to helping start revolutions, funding radicals and attacking national currencies. His insider trading conviction in France cost him $3 million and has been upheld by European courts repeatedly. His foundations have been opposed by nations around the globe, yet almost the only negative press he has received on ABC, CBS and NBC was linked to a sex scandal with a 28-year-old Brazilian actress.
• Political Contributions to Most Major Liberal Politicians: Soros has personally funded some of the top names in America’s left from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. Soros donates hundreds of millions to politically active liberal organizations as well. He’s even given $500,000 to the allegedly neutral Center for Responsive Politics, which is the source for much of the information on political donations.
• More Than Half a Billion Dollars to Finance the Left: George Soros aids hundreds of left-wing groups in America each year under the auspices of his Open Society Foundations. Since 2000, Soros has given more than $550 million to liberal organizations in the U.S., underwriting every major liberal initiative – pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-gay marriage, pro-drug legalization, pro-union, pro-government-funded media and even attacks against the concept of free elections and voting for judges.

Recommendations:

The Business and Media Institute has several recommendations for news outlets on how they can improve their coverage of George Soros and his foundations.

• Do Some Genuine Journalism and Investigate Soros: George Soros is the embodiment of media bias. While the American media obsess about almost any action of the libertarian Koch brothers, they all-but ignore his one-man quest for global power. Soros has given more than $8.5 billion to his Open Society Foundations, leaving an imprint on more than 70 nations. Any business, organization or individual with that kind of financing and international reach is ripe for investigation. It’s time journalists did some digging on their own.
• Treat Public Figures Equally: If someone on the left squawks about Charles and David Koch, journalists from some major news organizations jump to write about it. But criticisms of Soros, his business practices and even his conviction seldom get noted by the media. Journalists should treat all public figures equally.
• Don’t Ignore Soros Connections to Major News Events: Newspaper front pages are filled with protests, complaints and supposedly grassroots initiatives that are easily tied to Soros – through the Center of American Progress and other entities he funds. But that connection is almost never made made. Journalists ignore obvious funding connections and sometimes don’t even check connections openly made on organizational websites. It’s the job of news to show when organizations are blatantly working together toward an end and to show the obvious ties these groups might share.

Read the Special Report

Healthcare Uncertainty Paralyzes Entrepreneurs

Meet Jim Garland, Entrepreneur

“When you talk about healthcare and you talk to small business owners, heath care is one of our most expensive costs when it comes to doing business… There’s going to an obvious point in this where you can’t continue to hire people, you can’t continue to give raises, you might need to make cuts in your employees.” — Jim Garland

ALL THE DEMOCRATS CAN DO IS POUND THE TABLE

Written by Jack Kelly

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

If you've nothing to say, it's not a good idea to spend 54 minutes saying it. After listening to President Barack Obama's much ballyhooed speech on the economy in Cleveland June 14, Peggy Noonan wrote: "Politicians give 54-minute speeches when they don't know what they're trying to say." The consensus among even liberal journalists was the president said nothing new, little that was true, and droned on for much too long. "Instead of going to Ohio on Thursday with a compelling plan for the future, the president gave Americans a falsehood wrapped in a fallacy," wrote Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank. Though few others demonstrate it at such length, it's not just the president who has run out of substantive things to say.  For all but a handful of liberals, invective has replaced argument.  Columbia Law School Professor Jerome Michael explained why years ago: "If the facts are on your side, pound the facts," Prof. Michael advised his students.  "If the law is on your side, pound the law.  If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table." Liberals pound the table chiefly because Obama administration policies are such conspicuous failures they can't be defended with facts or logic.  All liberals can hope to do is to change the subject. There's another, darker reason why liberals rely so much upon name calling.  Democrats generally, President Obama in particular, have been influenced by Saul Alinsky, the Chicago Marxist and pioneer community organizer.  The most famous of his Rules for Radicals (1971) is: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Democrats have followed that rule faithfully, with considerable success.  But they've become like a football team that runs the same play over and over, without regard to down or distance. As the political outlook for them has darkened, Democrats and their allies in the news media have escalated their rhetoric: *Opposing the Obama administration's effort to require religious institutions to include what they think is morally wrong in their health insurance policies constitutes "a Republican war on women." *Supporting efforts to boost domestic energy production means Republicans "hate clean air and clean water," and are " getting away with murder." *Requiring voters to produce photo identification means Republicans "want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws."  Any criticism of any kind of the president or his attorney general is "racist." Becoming more shrill can make an argument less effective.  But liberals can't think of anything else to say.  That happens when you are morally and intellectually bankrupt. To be a liberal in the Age of Obama requires extraordinary flexibility of principle: *Big budget deficits were terrible when George W. Bush was president, but the much larger deficits run up by President Obama are of no concern. *When Mr. Bush bugged the telephones of terrorists overseas without getting permission from the courts first, an "imperial presidency" loomed.  But there is nothing to fret about when President Obama asserts the power to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism without a trial or even an indictment. *It's ok to leak national secrets if it will make the president look good.  But if documents sought by Congress might make him look bad, the president should claim executive privilege. Keeping up with the twists and turns in the party line can be exhausting.  But the greater problem for liberals is intellectual exhaustion.  Our self-styled "progressives" look only backward -- to ideas that are more than a century old, were put into practice half a century ago, and have failed for decades to produce the results liberals promised. Their model of governance has failed, but liberals won't acknowledge it.  They want to cling to power.  But liberals have no answers for the mammoth problems we face today -- problems largely of their creation -- except to do more of what got us into this mess. Not many Americans find that attractive, liberals realize.  So they pound the table.  The result in November may be that the voters will tell them to go pound sand. Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Obama's Support of Islam

He professes to be a Christian, but...

• May 2009 – While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan. ⁴⁴
• April 2010 – Christian leader Franklin Graham is disinvited from the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer Event because of complaints from the Muslim community. ⁴⁵
• April 2010 – The Obama administration requires rewriting of government documents and a change in administration vocabulary to remove terms that are deemed offensive to Muslims, including jihad, jihadists, terrorists, radical Islamic, etc. ⁴⁶
• August 2010 – Obama speaks with great praise of Islam and condescendingly of Christianity. ⁴⁷
• August 2010 – Obama went to great lengths to speak out on multiple occasions on behalf of building an Islamic mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time he was silent about a Christian church being denied permission to rebuild at that location. ⁴⁸
• 2010 – While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional Biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha. ⁴⁹
• October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House. ⁵⁰
• February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, ⁵¹ but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do. ⁵²

Many of these actions are literally unprecedented – this is the first time they have happened in four centuries of American history.

Legitimate Question

Written by a female Obama supporter who voted for him for president... 

This election has me very worried. So  many things to consider. I voted for Obama. McCain was a Washington insider  and we don't need any more of them. I have changed my mind three  times, since then. I watch all the news channels, jumping from one to  another. I must say this drives my husband crazy. But, I feel if you view CNN,  and Fox News, you might get some middle ground to work with. I started  thinking "where does all the money come from for President Obama"? I have  four daughters who went to College, and we were middle class, and money was  tight. We (including my girls) worked hard and there were lots of student  loans. I started looking into Obama's history for my own peace of  mind.

Around 1979 Obama started college at  Occidental in California . He is very open about his two years at  Occidental, he tried all kinds of drugs and was wasting his time but, even though he  had a brilliant mind, did not apply himself to his studies. "Barry" (that  was the name he used all his life) during this time had two roommates, Muhammad  Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid, both from Pakistan . During the summer of  1981, after his second year in college, he made a "round the world"  trip. Stopping to see his mother in  Indonesia , next Hyderabad in  India , three weeks in Karachi , Pakistan where he stayed with his  roommate's family, then off to Africa to visit his father's family.

My  question - Where did he get the money for this trip? Nether I, nor any one  of my children would have had money for a trip like this when they were in  college. When he came back he started school at Columbia University in   New York . It is at this time he wants everyone to call him Barack - not  Barry. Do  you know what the tuition is at Columbia ? It's not cheap to say the least. 

My  girls asked me; where did he get money for tuition? Student Loans? Maybe  it's none of my business?

After Columbia , he went to Chicago to  work as a Community Organizer for $12,000. a year. Why Chicago ? Why not New  York ? He was already living in New York . By "chance" he met Antoin "Tony"  Rezko, born in Aleppo Syria , and a real estate developer in Chicago . Rezko  has been convicted of fraud and bribery several times in the past and in  2011. Rezko, was named

"Entrepreneur of the Decade" by the  Arab-American Business and Professional Association". About two years later,  Obama entered Harvard Law School . Do you have any idea what tuition is for  Harvard Law School ?

Where did he get the money for Law  School ? More student loans? His family has no money that's for  sure.

After Law school, he went back to  Chicago . Rezko offered him a job, which he turned down. But, he did take a  job with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Guess what I discovered? They  represented "Rezar" which is Rezko's firm.

Rezko was one of Obama's first major  financial contributors when he ran for office in Chicago . In 2003, Rezko  threw an early fundraiser for Obama which Chicago Tribune reporter David  Mendelland claims was instrumental in providing Obama with "seed money" for  his U.S. Senate race.

In  2005, Obama purchased a new home in Kenwood District of Chicago for  $1.65 million (less than asking price). With ALL those Student Loans - Where  did he get the money for this property? On the same day Rezko's wife, Rita,  purchased the adjoining empty lot for full price. The London Times reported  that Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born Billionaire loaned Rezko $3.5 million three  weeks before Obama's new home was purchased. Obama  met Nadhmi Auchi many times with Rezko.

Now, we have Obama running for  President. Valerie Jarrett, was Michele Obama's boss. She is now Obama's  chief advisor and he does not make any major decisions without talking to her  first. Where was Jarrett born? Ready for this? Shiraz , Iran ! Am I going  nuts or is there a pattern here?

On  May 10, 2008, The Times reported, Robert Malley advisor to Obama was  "sacked" after the press found out he was having regular contacts with  "Hamas", which controls Gaza and is connected with Iran . This past week,  buried in the back part of the papers, Iraqi newspapers reported that during  Obama's visit to Iraq , he asked their leaders to do nothing about the war  until after he is elected, and he will "Take care of things". What the heck  does that mean?

Oh, and by the way, remember the  college roommates that were born in Pakistan ? They are in charge of all  those "small" Internet campaign contribution for Obama.  Where is that money coming from? The poor and middle class in this country?  Or could it be from the Middle East ?

And the final bit of news. On  September 7, 2009, The Washington Times posted a verbal slip that was made  on "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. Obama on talking about his  religion said, "My Muslim faith".  When questioned, "he made a  mistake". Some mistake huh?

All of the above information I got online. If you would like to check it - Wikipedia, encyclopedia, Barack Obama;  Tony Rezko; Valerie Jarrett: Daily Times - Obama visited Pakistan  in 1981; The Washington Times - September 7, 2008; The Times May 10,  2008.

The Mormon vs. The Moron

Wealthy Americans Jumping Obama’s Ship

Wealthy Americans aren’t just leaving tax-heavy states like New York and California, they’re leaving the country.

U.S. citizens are defecting at record levels in order to escape high taxes, the New York Post reported. About 8,000 U.S. citizens are projected to renounce their citizenship in 2012, or about 154 a week — versus 3,805 in 2011, or about 73 per week, according to immigration officials, the Post reported.

They want to avoid tax bills resulting from the proposed 55-percent hike on the wealthy and the anticipated expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts at the end of the year, the Post reported.

“High-net-worth individuals are making decisions that having a US passport just isn’t worth the cost anymore,” Jim Duggan, a lawyer at Duggan Bertsch, which specializes in protecting assets of the wealthy, told the Post.

“They’re able to do what they do from any place in the world, and they’re choosing to do it from places with much lower tax rates," he said. "Some are philosophically disgusted at the course our country is taking in all kinds of ways. They’re making a strong protest of, ‘Enough is enough.’ But largely it’s an economic decision.”

But to leave means finding a new country and obtaining citizenship and there are many that are eager to welcome wealthy Americans, such as Australia, Norway, Singapore, Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, and Antigua, according to the Post.

These countries tend to offer a fast track to citizenship and protections from the Justice Department and IRS.

© 2012 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Wealthy Americans Jumping Obama’s Ship
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

White House A Sore Winner On Arizona Ruling

Investors Business Daily

The Law: If there's any doubt the Supreme Court upheld the most substantial elements of Arizona's law to enforce U.S. immigration law, take a look at the scorched-earth response from the Obama administration to punish the state.

The Supreme Court voted 8-0 Monday to uphold a key provision of Arizona's S.B. 1070 that requires state troopers to check the immigration status of people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally after they've been caught committing other crimes.

That acknowledges the reality that the unlicensed man barreling down a desert highway with 40 people sweltering in his van might just be doing more than driving too fast, and that the bearded man caught with bomb-making tools and al-Qaida literature in his car might have more than chemistry on his agenda.

Three other provisions of the Arizona law were thrown out by the court, thereby leaving illegals the "right" to solicit day jobs on public streets, the "right" to not carry the same identification they are required to carry in their home countries and the "right" to not be deported after officers suspect them of crimes here.

But after the Obama administration and its media allies crowed that the court ruling was a win, their fury over their loss on the one provision became obvious.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the administration would cut off ties to Arizona's police and end provisions of seven 287(g) task force agreements that gave some Arizona police agencies powers to enforce immigration laws.

The vindictive, disproportionate response effectively isolates the state in terms of being far more stringent than anything the administration has inflicted on Burma, North Korea or Iran.

Federal authorities will no longer take phone calls from Arizona officers making immigration inquiries about suspected illegals picked up in the course of committing crimes, perhaps some quite spectacular ones.

Instead, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service "will tell the local police to release the person," the Washington Times reports. That's de facto amnesty to yet another group of criminal illegals, done this time as a means of punishing Arizona for its insolent desire to enforce federal law.

It goes to show that the court ruling was never a question of federal law trumping state law, as the administration has spun its argument in court, but of election-year pandering for the Latino vote.

The whole federal conflict with Arizona has come about not because Arizona wanted to make its own laws contradicting federal law, but because it wanted to enforce federal laws itself.

What does it say about the Obama administration's priorities that it effectively scraps its sworn pledge to uphold the law, usurps the legislative function by ignoring federal laws, punishes those who comply and puts its own re-election first?

© 2012 Investor's Business Daily, Inc. All rights reserved.

Why We Need to Get Out of the Middle East

TROUBLE IN THE HOLY LAND

Has the day of the Islamist arrived?

Pat Buchanan wonders what U.S. has gained 'from 30 years of interventions'

Sixteen months after the United States abandoned its loyal satrap of 30 years, President Hosni Mubarak, to champion democracy in Egypt, the returns are in. 

Mohammed Morsi, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is president of Egypt, while the military has dissolved the elected parliament that was dominated by the Brotherhood and curbed his powers. 

The military and the mullahs will fight for the future of a country that is home to one in four Arabs. The soldiers who have dominated Egypt since the ouster of King Farouk in 1952 show no willingness to surrender what they have long controlled of the state and economy. 

Yet in the long run, the Brotherhood – whose claim to guide the nation’s destiny is rooted in a faith 1,400 years old – is likely to prevail. 

In Syria, the uprising against Bashar Assad appears headed for civil war, with atrocities on both sides. Some 10,000 are estimated to have died, a far bloodier affair than Egypt. And here, too, the day of the Brotherhood, massacred in the thousands by Bashar’s father in Hama, seems not far off. 

Witnessing what is happening in these critical Arab countries and across the region, one is tempted to ask: What are the fruits of three decades of compulsive U.S. intervention in the Islamic world? 

Ronald Reagan put Marines in Lebanon to support an embattled Beirut regime and saw 241 of them massacred in their barracks. 

In 1986, he ordered air strikes on Libya in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin nightclub frequented by GIs. Reagan was paid back in his final days in office when Moammar Gadhafi’s killers blew up Pan Am 103, scattering the bodies of U.S. school kids over the Lockerbie landscape. 

George H.W. Bush launched Desert Storm to rescue Kuwait from Saddam Hussein and restore the emir. After five weeks of air war and 100 hours of ground combat, Bush triumphed. He then imposed an embargo-blockade on Iraq and transferred thousands of U.S. troops onto Saudi soil that is home to Mecca and Medina. 

Two of the causes of his attack on 9/11, said Osama bin Laden, were the U.S. strangulation of Iraq and the defiling of Islam’s sacred soil by infidel U.S. troops. 

George W. Bush answered 9/11 by invading Afghanistan, driving out the Taliban and al-Qaida, and staying on to build a more secular, democratic and pluralistic nation. He then invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam and convert that country into a model Arab democracy and strategic base camp for the United States in the Middle East. 

What did those wars cost? What did they accomplish? 

Some 6,500 U.S. dead, 40,000 wounded, $1 to $2 trillion sunk. Tens of thousands of Afghan and 100,000 Iraqi dead, with widows and orphans numbering over 500,000. Half the Christians of Iraq have fled their homes, and half of these have fled the country in which their ancestors had lived almost since the time of Christ. 

Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq can be regarded as a loyal ally or defender of U.S. interests. Pakistan, a country of 170 million with atomic weapons and an ally through 40 years of Cold War, has been converted into an embittered and even hostile nation. 

The U.S.-NATO intervention in Libya brought about the dethroning and death of Gadhafi. It also resulted in the expulsion of Tuareg tribesmen who had served Gadhafi as mercenaries. Back in Mali, they have joined rebels to effect the secession of a slice of Mali the size of France, which is now becoming a haven for al-Qaida. 

When one considers the investment America has made in the Middle East – the dead and wounded from our wars, the trillions lost in fighting and foreign aid, the endless time and attention of our leaders, scholars, journalists – what do we have to show for it? 

From the Maghreb to the Middle East to Afghanistan, Christians are as isolated and imperiled as they have been in centuries. 

The Israelis now have as neighbors: Hezbollah to the north, an embittered, segregated Palestinian population of 2 million to the east, Hamas to the south and to the west an Egypt of 80 million that has just passed into the custody of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

And among those seeking to bring down Assad are not only Americans, Turks, Saudis and Qatari, but al-Qaida, the principal suspect in the terror bombings of Aleppo and Damascus, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which owes the Assad family a blood debt. 

If Assad falls and Sunnis seize power and pursue their slogan – “Christians to Beirut and Alawites to the tomb” – a prediction: A return of the Golan Heights taken by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War will top the agenda of the new Damascus regime. 

And now John McCain is calling for air strikes on Damascus, and Bibi Netanyahu and his neocon allies have Tehran in their gun sights. 

What exactly have we gained from 30 years of interventions in the Middle East – that China lost out on by staying out?

The Movie: "2016"

Want to know why Obama does the things he does? It's not what you think. Watch this video...

http://www.youtube.com/v/Z6QOscKvUjU?version=3&feature=player_detailpage

The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria

Green Drivel Exposed

By Lorrie Goldstein ,Toronto Sun 

Saturday, June 23, 2012 

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.

Among his observations to the Guardian:

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.

As Lovelock observes, “Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.” (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”

What is Crony Capitalism?

THIS is crony capitalism...

Keep your eye on Waukesha, Wisconsin......Their biggest employer just moved out. 

 

General Electric is planning to move its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha to Beijing. In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers.

 

This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year, but paid NO taxes. 

 

The same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the United States. So let me get this straight. President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs. I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs.

 

 

Drilling Permits: A Comparison

Any Questions?

The Democrats Are Fracked

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler

Thursday, 21 June 2012

It's not just that the Dems are going to lose the White House in November.  Control of the Oval Office regularly flips back and forth between them and the Pubs over the years. It's not just that the Dems are going to lose big ("rrreally big, rrreally big" as Ed Sullivan would say) in November.  Zero will be lucky to carry 10 states in a Romney Landslide, while the Pubs will take the Senate and gain seats in the House.  Yet the Reagan Landslides of 1980/1984 were far greater than anything Romney can hope for - and the Dems were back in the White House saddle four years after the Gipper. No, what is going on is much - as in much - bigger than mere electoral loss.  What the Dems are going to lose in November is about as big as it gets.  They are going to lose their raison d'être - their "reason to be," the basic justification for their existence. This is why they are panicking, why most everything they do now is doltish, for panic makes you stupid.   This is why Zero is making moves of ever-increasing desperation - Amnesty EO's, Executive Privilege merely to protect his corrupt AG.  This is why the Moonbat Media is in a state of foaming hysteria.  For all of them, their fear and fury is existential. Democrats of whatever stripe, from the 76 hard-core commies of the " Progressive Caucus" to squishy "moderates," are almost all Marxists at heart.  Their most oft-cited mantra is a demand for "fairness," which is Marxist code for "nobody can get wealthy except by ripping people off, so we get to take their wealth by force and give it to people who will vote for us when we do." It's the old exploitation claim as a rationale for theft and power.   Wealth is never created, it is always "exploited" by the selfish and unscrupulous who take more than their "fair share" from honest hard-working laborers.  Marxism has always been a hard sell in an America populated by folks determined to create the American Dream of prosperity for themselves and their families.   It was made even more so by the collapse of its principal global propagandist, the Soviet Union.  Very few self-admitted full-bore Marxists are to be found these days besides university professors of sociology and gender studies. So the Dems were forced into pleas for political pablum like "fairness" as the rationale for what they really wanted: power.  Power for the sheer sake of it, power as a means to accumulate wealth through graft.  The Democrat will to power is what makes them Fascists in addition to Marxists. The plea for "fairness" only gets so far, however.   You can only con or threaten those who are "unfair" so long until they find ways to stop being extorted.  You have to race to make so many people dependent upon your extorted largesse that they'll vote to keep you in power no matter the extortionees do. To win this race, you have to come up with a replacement rationale as Marxism has become obsolete.   A rationale that would give you such control over the economy that you can direct it to favor scam artists who'll give you massive kickbacks (called campaign donations), screw anyone you disfavor, and make ever more people dependent on government programs (like turning corn farmers into ethanol subsidy beggars). The entire Democrat-Media-Academia Complex thought they came up with the perfect replacement rationale of Marxism in Global Warming.   In fact, Warmism was much better than Marxism.  You didn't have to indulge in unintelligible gobbledygook like "dialectical materialism" or "the negation of the negation."  You didn't have to base the very foundation of your rationale on grade school absurdities as the Labor Theory of Value, which anyone trying to sell yesterday's newspaper discovers doesn't work. All you had to do is bribe scientists with billions in grant money to say the earth is warming so much that we're all going to die, and it's all our fault for living a modern lifestyle.   Then you get to control every aspect of our lives.  Simple. The key to that control is to control energy - the energy we use to drive our cars, heat and cool our homes and offices, the energy civilization needs to function.  If you can control that, you can control just about everything.  With Warmism, the Dems had it made in the sweltering shade. Except for this one tiny little problem.   The shade wasn't sweltering.  People all over the planet were freezing their tushes off in the winter.  And not frying their brains out all summer.  The Great Enemy of all forms of true-believer fanaticism began to creep into folks' brains:  Doubt. With doubt, people start to think instead of blindly believe - so they noticed that all the apocalyptic predictions of Warmism weren't happening.   Soon, all that was sustaining Warmism was the con of Peak Oil, that we were running out of unrenewable "fossil fuels," with our only hope being "renewable energy" supplied by government-subsidized solar farms, wind farms, hybrid cars, and ethanol. And then came fracking. The revolutionary technology of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from shale deposits is wiping the floor with Warmism.   One example would be British scientist James Lovelock, revered by enviros for his "Gaia" theory of the Earth as a single self-regulating organism, and predicting in 2006 that "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" within the next few decades due to man-made global warming. A few days ago, Lovelock came out big time for fracking:  "Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They've gone for fracking in a big way... Let's be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it." Oh, and Lovelock now admits his "mistake" on Warmism, and laughs at it instead. Living in a cottage on the beach in Dorsett, he says, "I'm not worried about sea-level rises. At worst, I think it will be 2ft a century." When Gurus of Warmism recant and say it's a crock, you know Warmism is headed for the same ash heap of history Marxism is lying on.  That would be the same ash heap the Democrats are headed for. Let's go to Pennsylvania to see why.  Zero can't win without it.   Here is a mesmerizing county analysis of the "undervote" of Dem voters in PA's presidential primary (the percentage of voters who chose "No Candidate" instead of Zero), compared with maps of the Marcellus Shale and active drill sites.  Romney is going to win Pennsylvania in a walk. Next we go to San Antonio, headquarters of Valero Energy, whose 16 refineries produce 3 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel a year, sold through 6,800 gas stations.  ("Valero" comes from a Franciscan church built in 1724, the Mission of San Antonio de Valero - St. Anthony the Valiant.   Today, it is known as The Alamo.) Last Friday (6/15), Valero announced it will stop importing crude oil to its Gulf Coast refineries.  Thanks to fracking, so much US domestic production is coming from "the Eagle Ford of Texas, the Bakken of North Dakota, and many other areas," that there's no more need for imported oil. The company noted the continuing drop in imported oil throughout the US.  In total, the US imported 952,000 barrels of light, sweet crude a day during 2011, while for 2012, it has dropped drastically to 763,000 barrels per day.   Valero CEO Bill Klesse says he expects this trend to strongly continue. This means far more than "energy independence" with all the significance to our national security.  It means a continually flowing gusher of money and jobs injected into the economy by abundant and cheap energy - the Dems' nightmare.   Not only do they lose their last best hope for a rationale to power, increasing widespread prosperity resulting from abundant and cheap energy coupled with Romney Republicans dismantling government rules and regs stifling the economy means less government dependence for millions of voters. People in Pennsylvania are figuring it out.  They'll be followed by vast numbers of voters in other states.   Zero is an Epic Fail as a president, the Dems are an Epic Fail as a party.  After November, the Dems will be a regional party, no longer national, confined to such retrograde states as California, New York, and Rhode Island.  They may well be the Whigs of the 21st century. The combination of Zero, Warmism as a crock, and fracking is a fatal witch's brew for Dems.  In a word, the Democrat Party is fracked.

"All this for a damn flag?"

Obama and his wife were attending the 9/11 Memorial Ceremony and watched as the Color Guard folded the flag into a triangular shape, according to custom.

A video camera caught the two from the sidelines.  Obama's wife leanedover and said to him, "All this for a damn flag?"  Obama turned to her, smiled smugly and nodded his head in agreement.

How do we know what was said?  The video was presented for translation to a lip reading instructor at The River School http://www.riverschool.net, a Washington D.C. school for the deaf. The video is shown at normal speed, 3/4 speed, and 1/2 speed with no banners obstructing her lips.  Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgWMI0hch8&feature=related

Had enough yet?  One Term Only!!