Supreme Court Overturns Ricci v. DeStefano

The Supreme Court has overturned the ruling upheld by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano. The court case had several white firefighters filing suit against the city of New Haven over a promotional test that was given that several white firefighters and one hispanic firefighter passed, but the results were thrown out and no firefighters were promoted because no black firefighters passed the test. The case revealed the bias created by affirmative action. Several lower courts ruled against the firefighters until the case was finally heard by the Supreme Court. The close 5-4 ruling reveals the bias and racism of the Supreme Court. The fact that four justices could not see past the color of people's skin to look at character and test results is an atrocity and pulls away the blindfold that is over Lady Justice's eyes.

The city of New Haven argued that it threw out test results to avoid litigation from minorities groups. Anthony Kennedy was the deciding vote and wrote that "fear of litigation alone cannot justify the city's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotion." The ruling reverses an earlier unsigned opinion on the case in which Sonia Sotomayor concurred when she sat on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Sotomayor's opinion on the case is a black mark that conservatives and moderates alike find hard to swallow and could be an area of contention in her upcoming confirmation hearings.

The Supreme Court ruled on the side of justice in this case, but the close vote reveals how far our country has fallen from principles, particularly Constitutional principles.

H.R. 2454 - Cap & Trade Bill

The Cap & Trade Bill formally known as H.R. 2454 that states, “To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy” is coming up for a vote this Friday, June 26th. Nancy Pelosi scheduled the vote because she feels that Farm Belt Democrats will get on board now that Henry Waxman has offered a verbal promise that people in rural areas – farmers – will not face a large increase in their energy bills. President Obama has touted this bill as a job creator. But conservatives know that this bill is an economy slower.

The legislation, co-sponsored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D., Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass.), had stalled last week due to some push back from Farm Belt. The Cap & Trade bill will cap greenhouse-gas emissions at 17% of 2005 levels by 2020 and at roughly 80% by 2050, creating a market for companies to buy and sell the right to emit carbon dioxide and other gases. This is true money maker for whoever sells carbon offsets. People like Al Gore and companies like General Electric will profit nicely. Greenhouse gas emissions have yet to be proven as the cause for global warming and yet Americans will be forced to suffer at the hands of this bill. The typical American family will pay $2,000 more in energy bills each year. Jobs in coal will be lost. Our economy will slow as the use of solar and wind blocks progress.

The bill mandates a new renewable electricity standard and establishes new national building codes. Governor Sarah Palin has come against these new building codes which will not work for Alaskans. President Obama claims that the bill is "extraordinarily important for our country." The President also sent out his propaganda machine to convince the country that Cap & Trade is a good thing for us via his Energy, Interior, Transportation and Labor secretaries.

Steny Hoyer is promising that the bill will be passed by late Friday or even a special meeting on Saturday despite the most contentious part of the bill which is the climate change portion. Republicans and some Democrats are promising that the measure will drive jobs overseas. And it does not take a rocket scientist to know that China will leave America even further in its dust since they will not abide by any regulations and use as much oil as they want. John Boehner summed the bill up well in his op-ed piece for the Washington Times writing, "Under the guise of reducing carbon emissions, Democrats are poised to force anyone who drives a car, buys an American-made product, or flips on a light switch to pay a national energy tax."

Contact your representatives before Friday!

President Obama Signs Bill Giving FDA Unprecedented Control

Today, President Obama signed a bill recently passed by Congress that gives the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented authority to regulate what goes into tobacco products, to make public the ingredients and to prohibit marketing campaigns geared toward children. The government now runs the tobacco industry. Never mind that the President himself continues to be a smoker - an irony not lost on me. The President claimed that this new bill will keep kids away from starting the habit of smoking. As if ads, which do not run on television or cable, were the main reason kids pick up the habit.

Peer pressure is the main reason many kids start smoking and the power of nicotene addiction grabs them and holds them. But is it the governments job to keep kids from smoking? Is it the government's job to regulate the tobacco industry? When will the government start telling the alcohol industry how much alcohol they can have in their offerings? Or how much caffeine coffee and soda can contain?

This is all about power and control. Particularly, since the President pontificates about the bad habit of smoking while continuing to hold onto the habit himself. The President discussed the merits of the bill and the shortcomings of the tobacco industry. And yet, our government needs more people to take up the bad habit to fund their healthcare plans for children and adults through increased tobacco taxes. Talk about Schizophrenic!

House Tables Resolution To Investigate Pelosi

A month ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that the CIA had misled her as well as the rest of Congress on the topic of interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects. There have been calls for the release of documents describing the use of these techniques and the information acquired from using techniques such as waterboarding. This release of documents was to coincide with an investigation into Nancy Pelosi's claims against the CIA. Last week, the House GOP drafted a priviledged resolution that would establish a select subcommittee under the Intelligence Committee to "review and verify the accuracy of the speaker's aforementioned public statements." The resolution was packaged as a "priviledged resolution" so that the House would be forced to vote on it. Democrats quickly tabled the resolution on a 247-171 party line vote. Not a single Democrat crossed party lines meaning they all backed the Speaker and thus are inclined to believe that the CIA is lying.

Republicans had wanted to use the resolution as a way to create a special committee that would be comprised of four members of the Intelligence Committee — two appointed by the chairman and two appointed by the ranking Republican on the panel. This subcommittee would have been able to use subpoena power to obtain documents and testimony. “I am disappointed that, once again, rank-and-file Democrats have refused to join Republicans in establishing a bipartisan investigation into these serious allegations,” Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said.

Cash For Clunkers Passes Senate

Congress approved a "cash for clunkers" program today that will provide government incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 to motorists if they trade in their clunkers, which are defined as gas guzzling vehicles. The money is to be used to pay for a more fuel efficient car. Republicans strongly opposed the measure except for RINOs like Susan Collins. Who exactly is paying for these clunkers - the taxpayers.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden pushed the measure hard by making calls to Democrats who were considering voting against the measure like Senator Maria Cantwell. Senator Debbie Stabenow said, "This is an emergency for families and small businesses -- for an industry that has been the backbone of our economy for a generation."

Let's keep in mind that a newer fuel efficient car costs more than $4500 and so people will be saddled with more debt and these types of cars cost more as well. Not to mention the increase in insurance costs and upkeep. And all of this increases the national debt even more. This measure was hidden in the $106 billion war supplemental bill.

The House passed the bill on a vote of 298-119. Next stop is the White House for Obama's signature which is sure to come since he was pressuring Senators to pass the bill. Four Republicans -- Kit Bond of Missouri, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Susan Collins of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio -- voted with two independents and 54 Democrats in favor of the clunker measure, while Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska was opposed along with 35 Republicans.

CBO Tells Truth About Government Healthcare

The Congressional Budget Office Director sent out letters to both Senators Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg this week detailing the budgetary concerns over healthcare costs. The Director wrote, "The federal government’s budgetary commitments to health care (including both spending programs and tax preferences) total more than $1 trillion in 2009. Many proposals to significantly expand health insurance coverage would add to federal costs by providing large subsidies to help lower-income individuals and families purchase insurance. Such proposals could permanently boost the government’s budgetary commitments to health care by something in the vicinity of 10 percent. Improving the long-term budget outlook would require addressing that added cost in addition to the budgetary strains anticipated under current law. Health care legislation might include provisions that would make it budget neutral over the first 10 years, but such legislation might nevertheless add to budget deficits in later years." The CBO's analysis on health care spending did not include the potential bill being pondered in the Senate.

This basically informs us that the cost of government healthcare will be great and keep in mind that these estimates do not include the public option part of government healthcare. The CBO included the estimate that many people would leave their employer health plans and buy into the government plan and that this healthcare plan will leave thirty million people still without healthcare. The report states, "Most expansions of insurance coverage that are under consideration would leave a moderate number of people uninsured, in part because some people
would be ineligible for subsidies or would choose not to buy insurance even with large subsidies. Therefore, any current problems arising from the lack of insurance could be reduced but not eliminated." The concern in the Congress is so great over this CBO report that Max Baucus who drafted the original legislation is starting over with the bill.

The CBO also projects that "Medicare’s Part A trust fund—which pays for inpatient services,
post-acute care, and hospice services and receives revenues principally from the
payroll tax—will have insufficient funds to pay for all covered services starting in
2017." The Congress and President have offered no option with how to reform Medicare. The CBO also maintains that offering broader coverage will not reduce costs or produce net savings in national or federal spending on health care.

"This bill costs too much, covers too few and will force about 10 million people to have to lose their employer-provided coverage," Senator Michael Enzi of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, told CNN. And despite the President claiming that the AMA is with him, the president, Nancy Nielsen said, "We're not sure that the government is very good at running a health plan."

The CBO report can be found here.

H.R. 1444 Mandatory Servitude Bill

H.R. 1444 was introduced on March 11, 2009 and was referred to committee where it continues to sit as Congress takes on more important powergrabs like universal healthcare. H.R. 1444 would establish the Congressional Commission on Civic Service to study methods of improving and promoting volunteerism and national service, but in reality it promotes the idea of involuntary servitude. Originally H.R. 1388, which has already passed, contained the language that made service mandatory and that language now appears in H.R. 1444:

"Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds."

Mandatory service is prohibited by the 13th Amendment. The 13th Amendment says:
1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

H.R. 1444 is unConstitutional and we need to keep watch over this amendment when it moves out of committee and comes up for a vote.