"He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left."
Matthew 25:33

Monday, March 30, 2009

Michelle Bachmann Grills Geithner & Bernanke

In Congress, during a meeting to further discuss the AIG bailout and other issues, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R- Dist 6) pushes U.S. Secy of Treasury Timothy Geitner and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke on the constitutionality of their actions. Some of Geitner's expressions tell it all. They don't care about the Constitution or our government. At approx the 3 minute mark, Geitner mentions "your government" while answering Bachmann. Isn't it Tim Geitner's government too? Who is this guy working for?

Friday, March 27, 2009

GIVE, Soviet Style

From the Family Research Center,

President Obama has said repeatedly that he wants to create an army of volunteers, but who knew he planned on drafting his troops? The GIVE (Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education) Act empowers the President to do just that. For a piece of legislation as misguided as GIVE, the bill has sailed almost completely uncontested through the House (321-105) and Senate (79-19). Among its more troubling aspects, GIVE (also known as the "Serve America Act" and H.R. 1388) costs roughly $6 billion and makes forced volunteerism a part of young people's curriculum.

Maybe you, like the 400 leaders who voted in favor of GIVE, believe that instilling a sense of charity in our teens sounds like a reasonable idea. Unfortunately, the fine print makes it quite clear that this legislation isn't driven by a sense of community service, but rather a liberal ideology that dictates how and whom our children will serve. With Obama bureaucrats directing young people to government-approved charities, it's likely that teenagers will have no opportunity to give back to worthwhile (but pro-family) causes like pregnancy care centers or church food pantries.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a Republicans with real spine, pointed out that the language of the bill is intentionally vague, which could help radical groups advance their agenda with taxpayer dollars "in the name of community service." In an admirable attempt to incorporate some pro-life efforts in the list of approved charities, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) introduced an amendment to ensure that pregnancy care centers were included. It failed by a 41-56 vote.

Thune wasn't finished yet. To help preserve the tax deduction for charitable giving that President Obama has fought to cut, the South Dakota senator tried to pass a "Sense of the Senate" amendment in opposition to the White House plan. (A "Sense of the Senate" expresses the opinion of the Senate but doesn't make law.) Despite being endorsed by 600 D.C.-based charities, it fell one vote shy (48-49). For an excellent breakdown of H.R. 1388, don't miss RedState's post, "National Service--Soviet Style." For a link, log on to FRC Action's Cloakroom.


Want to read more?

Learn more about the GIVE Act

An Explanation of Our 2nd Ammendment Rights

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Family of Irving 'Bud' Feldkamp, Owner of the Nation's Largest Privately Owned Abortion Chain, Dies in Montana Plane Crash

From the Christian News Wire,

MEDIA ADVISORY, Mar. 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- Some of you may have seen the major news story of the private plane that crashed into a Montana cemetery, killing 7 children and 7 adults.

But what the news sources fail to mention is that the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery owned by Resurrection Cemetery Association in Butte - contains a memorial for local residents to pray the rosary, at the 'Tomb of the Unborn'. This memorial, located a short distance west of the church, was erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion.

What else is the mainstream news not telling you? The family who died in the crash near the location of the abortion victim's memorial, is the family of Irving 'Bud' Feldkamp, owner of the largest for-profit abortion chain in the nation.

Family Planning Associates was purchased four years ago by Irving Moore "Bud" Feldkamp III, owner of Allcare and Hospitality Dental Associates and CEO of Glen Helen Raceway Park in San Bernardino. The 17 California Family Planning clinics perform more abortions in the state than any other abortion provider - Planned Parenthood included - and they perform abortions through the first five months of pregnancy.

Read the rest of the story here,

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/646579835.html

Monday, March 23, 2009

Real ID Comes to Minnesota

Your chance to show up and speak out against Minnesota's version of the Real ID Act is Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 4:30 PM Room: 10 State Office Building, Committee: Transportation Finance and Policy Division will be hearing HF1005. This bill would require Minnesota to comply with yet another unfunded, and unconstitutional, mandate by the federal government.

Here is a little piece of it.

Subd. 37b. Enhanced identification card. "Enhanced identification card" means an identification card issued or issuable under the laws of this state by the commissioner of public safety that denotes citizenship and identity and contains technology and security features approved by the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security. An enhanced identification card may be used in the same manner as an identification card and is approved by the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security for purposes of entering the United States.

"Technology and security features." I warned you about this when I was out campaigning last year. Do you remember what this means? It means that you will have to provide a DNA sample to the government that will be placed on your new drivers license. Or a RFID. That means Radio Frequency Identification Chip. That is a computer chip that would allow the government to track your every move. How do you like that? Wonderful isn't it? I know you well informed people that vote nothing but democrat are happy. I am sure your liberal elected officials told you "It's for your own good." Therefore you must obey. Wake up and smell the coffee! Read the Constitution! Get your butt to the State Building on Thursday and demand your privacy from government interference as stated in our Constitution. Help us declare our independence as Minnesotans.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Joe Atkins Unethical Abuse of Campaign Funds

Representative Atkins has a big reputation in Minnesota's House District 39B. It is as if he invincible, as if nothing can stop him. Well it seems to me that Joe has shot himself in the foot.

Joe has been the mayor of Inver Grove Heights at the young age of twenty and then moved on to the state legislature where he is currently serving his fourth term as a state representative. With his fast move up the ladder it is reasonable to assume his head may have swollen some. But when it gets too big it needs to be poked with a needle and the time has come for Joe.

I think of the quote by Lord Acton, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Joe has his share of power and now with the democrats holding the majority in the House and the Senate Joe Atkins must be feeling absolutely powerful. I have recently taken a look at his campaign finance report that can be viewed at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board website.

The magnitude of excess committed by Representative Atkins is distasteful to say the least. It may be legal, but it is definitely unethical. I would like to know what the people who donated to his campaign have to say about where their money was spent.

I came across a document that is a quick tally of some of the non-campaign expenditures in Atkins campaign finance report.

  • He raised over $125,000. Had over 140 individual expenditures for restaurants, bars, and fundraiser food events for over $11,500.
  • A couple to key in on are one for $187.81 at ARAMARK in Minneapolis Dec 4th. An expenditure which he claims was for food for volunteers while campaigning - one month after elections.
  • This one brings back memories. I recall at the candidate forum at Town Square Television Joe was pretty cocky and invited us to Old World Pizza afterward. His campaign report shows a total of $1154.89 spent there during six visits last year. Now I realize that Joe was going to pay for it with campaign funds and not out of his own pocket. So Joe was not being very generous after all.
  • Or the expenditures from the Green Mill paying for food for volunteers while campaigning, in Blaine (Green Mill in Blaine)
  • Also look at the $2,000 for the car plus takes mileage and car expenses of $3247.02.
  • Several trips paid for plane tickets with Northwest Airlines for $825.00.
  • Two Hyatt Hotel stays in DC, once on 3/2/08 and on 12/15/08 for a total of $953.55 and a room at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida, for $194.15.
  • Enterprise Rent A Car in Jacksonville Florida, $184.84 on 12/9/08. More than a month after the election. Claimed as conference rental, expense of serving in office
  • He also prepaid his mailings/newsletters for 2009 and gave the House DFL caucus $20,000.
  • $2239.34 to Verizon for his cell phone claimed as the expense of serving in public office. What a scam. Joe is claiming $77.00 daily for per diem and pocketing the money and paying his personal expenses with funds from his campaign account.

Here are just a few of his claimed campaign expenditures,
  • Bought a camera at Best Buy for $234.81.
  • Why would he need two printers? One from Office Max for $283.60 and another from Cathy McClain for $292.86
  • $151.00 for dues in the River Heights Business Association. Shouldn't that be paid for out of his pocket rather than his campaign account? If it is for his law office, shouldn't that come from their account?
Here are a few more non-campaign expenditures gleaned from his report,

  • Sixteen visits to Applebees in Inver Grove Heights costing $758.08
  • Fourteen visits to Josephs Resteraunt in Saint Paul costing $705.00
  • Mama's on Rice Street for $173.71

Monday, March 9, 2009

So what have we learned in two millennia?

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled,
public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should
be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands
should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again
learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

--Cicero, 55 BC

Evidently, not a damn thing...

Monday, March 2, 2009

Sun chain kills South St. Paul-IGH community paper, or Ding Dong the Witch is About to Die

The story below is from MinnPost.com. It looks as if our local liberal, left-leaning rag is in its death throws as it is in massive debt to its creditors. I recently talked to an account executive at Sun Current Newspapers and was informed that not only is it being discontinued in South Saint Paul and Inver Grove Heights, but West Saint Paul and Mendota Heights as well! So we can say goodbye to our little media outlet that caters to the liberal point of view. Boo hoo.


Sun chain kills South St. Paul-IGH community paper

By David Brauer | Published Wed, Feb 25 2009 10:35 am

There's a perception out there that smaller, closer-to-the-ground community papers might weather the economic storm better than their big cousins. Locally, there's good reason to believe that, since several operations carry little or no debt.

Sun Newspapers is not among them. I wrote about them twice last summer; in July, a share of stock in their parent corporation, American Community Newspapers, had fallen from $5.63 a year earlier to 16 cents, largely due to a punishing $136 million debt burden.

Since then, the debt has risen, and ACNI stock is worth eight-tenths of a cent. In August, the AMEX exchange booted the company; a September filing said the company had defaulted on $145 million in debt, and in November, the company stopped making public financial reports.

Since everything has only gone to hell economically since then, I started wondering how these guys have managed to stay out of Chapter 11. Last week, I began an email dance with the company's spokesperson (I wanted an interview with a top executive; they've asked for questions in advance). Today, I received a memo with at least one small but concrete indication of stress.


Read the memo and the rest of the story here,

http://www.minnpost.com/braublog/2009/02/25/6962/sun_chain_kills_south_st_paul-igh_community_paper

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Senator Tom Coburn's Speech on the Stimulus Bill

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's speech to Congress

He is the only MD in the Senate.

THE STIMULUS IS A STEP TOWARDS A SOVIET AMERICA Written by Senator Tom Coburn Tuesday, 10 February 2009.

"We are going in exactly the wrong direction. We ought to be standing on the principles that made this country great.

There ought to be a review of every program in the Federal Government that is not effective, that is not efficient, that is wasteful or fraudulent, and we ought to get rid of it right now. We ought to say, Gone, to be able to pay for a real stimulus plan that might, in fact, have some impact.

I would be remiss if I didn't remind everybody that next week we are going to hear from the Obama administration wanting another $500 billion. Outside of this ["stimulus" bill], they are going to want another $500 billion to handle the banking system.

I want to make sure the American people know what is in this Stimulus bill. I think once they know what is in this bill, they are going to reject it out of hand. Let me read for my colleagues some of the things that are in this bill.

The biggest earmark in history is in this bill. There is $2 billion in this bill to build a coal plant with zero emissions. That would be great, maybe, if we had the technology, but the greatest brains in the world sitting at MIT say we don't have the technology yet to do that.

Why would we build a $2 billion power plant we don't have the technology for that we know will come back and ask for another $2 billion and another $2 billion and another $2 billion when we could build a demonstration project that might cost $150 million or $20 million? There is nothing wrong with having coal-fired plants that don't produce pollution; I am not against that. Even the Washington Post said the technology isn't there. It is a boondoggle. Why would we do that?

We eliminated tonight a $246 million payback for the large movie studios in Hollywood.

We are going to spend $88 million to study whether we ought to buy a new ice breaker for the Coast Guard. You know what. The Coast Guard needs a new ice breaker. Why do we need to spend $88 million? They have two ice breakers now that they could retrofit and fix and come up with equivalent to what they needed to and not spend the $1 billion they are going to come back and ask for, for another ice breaker, so why would we spend $88 million doing that?

We are going to spend $448 million to build the Department of Homeland Security a new building. We have $1.3 trillion worth of empty buildings right now, and because it has been blocked in Congress we can't sell them, we can't raze them, we can't do anything, but we are going to spend money on a new building here in Washington.

We are going to spend another $248 million for new furniture for that building; a quarter of a billion dollars for new furniture. What about the furniture the Department of Homeland Security has now? These are tough times. Should we be buying new furniture? How about using what we have? That is what a family would do. They would use what they have. They wouldn't go out and spend $248 million on furniture.

How about buying $600 million worth of hybrid vehicles? Do you know hat I would say? Right now times are tough; I would rather Americans have new cars than Federal employees have new cars. What is wrong with the cars we have? Dumping $600 million worth of used vehicles on the used vehicle market right now is one of the worst things we could do. Instead, we are going to spend $600 million buying new cars for Federal employees.

There is $400 million in here to prevent STDs. I have a lot of experience on that. I have delivered 4,000 babies. We don't need to spend $400 million on STDs. What we need to do is properly educate about the infection rates and the effectiveness of methods of prevention. That doesn't take a penny more. You can write that on one piece of paper and teach every kid in this country, but we don't need to spend $400 million on it. It is not a priority.

How about $150 million for a Smithsonian museum? Tell me how that helps get us out of a recession. Tell me how that is a priority. Would the average American think that is a priority that we ought to be mortgaging our kids' future to spend another $150 million at the Smithsonian?

How about $1 billion for the 2010 census? So everybody knows, the census is so poorly managed that the census in 2010 is going to cost twice what it cost 10 years ago, and we wasted $800 million on a contract because it was no-bid that didn't perform. Nobody got fired, no competitive bidding, and we blew $800 million.

We have $75 million for smoking cessation activities, which probably is a great idea, but we just passed a bill, the SCHIP bill, that we need to get 21 million more Americans smoking to be able to pay for that bill. That doesn't make sense.

How about $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges? I mean, did we talk with Dell and Hewlett-Packard and say, How do we make you all do better? Is there not a market force that could make that better? Will we actually buy on a true competitive bid?

No, because there is nothing that requires competitive bidding in anything in this bill. There is nothing that requires it. It is one of the things President Obama said he was going to mandate at the Federal Government, but there is no competitive bidding in this bill at all.

We have $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas. Well, that will put 10 or 15 people to work. Is that a priority for us right now?

There is $6 billion to turn Federal buildings into green buildings. That is a priority, versus somebody getting a job outside of Washington, a job that actually produces something, that actually increases wealth?

How about $500 million for State and local fire stations? Where do you find in the Constitution us paying for local fire stations within our realm of prerogatives? None of it is competitively bid.

Next is $1.2 billion for youth activities. Who does that employ? What does that mean?

How about $88 million for renovating the public health service building? You know, if we could sell half of the $1.3 trillion worth of properties we have, we could take care of every Federal building requirement and backlog we have.

Then there's $412 million for CDC [Centers for disease Control] buildings and property. We spent billions on a new center and headquarters for CDC. Is that a priority? If we are going to spend $412 million on building buildings, let's build one that will produce something, one that will give us something.

How about $850 million for that most ``efficient'' Amtrak that hasn't made any money since 1976 and continues to have $2 billion or $3 billion a year in subsidies?

Here is one of my favorites: $75 million to construct a new ``security training'' facility for State Department security officers. We already have four other facilities already available to train them. But they want theirs. By the way, it is going to be in West Virginia. I wonder how that got here.

So we are going to build a new training facility that duplicates four others that we already have that could easily do what we need to do. But because we have a stimulus package, we are going to add in oink pork.

How about $200 million in funding for a lease - not buying, but a lease - of alternative energy vehicles on military installations?

We are going to bail out the States on Medicaid. Total all of the health programs in this, and we are going to transfer $150 billion out of the private sector and we are going to move it to the Federal Government. You talk about back-dooring national health care.

Henry Waxman has to be smiling big today. He wants a single-payer Government-run health care system. We are going to move another $150 billion to the Federal Government from the private sector.

We are going to eliminate fees on loans from the Small Business Administration. You know what that does? That pushes productive capital to unproductive projects. It is exactly the wrong thing to do.

We are going to spend $524 million for information technology upgrades that the Appropriations Committee claims will create 388 jobs. If you do the math on that, that is $1.5 million a job. Don't you love the efficiency of Washington thinking?

We are going to create $79 billion in additional money for the States, a ``slush fund,'' to bail out States and provide millions of dollars for education costs. How many of you think that will ever go away?

Once the State education programs get $79 billion over 2 years, do you think that will ever go away? The cry and hue of taking "our money" away, even though it was a stimulus and supposed to be limited, it will never go away. So we will continue putting that forward until our kids have grand kids of their own.

There is about $47 billion for a variety of energy programs that are primarily focused on renewable energy. I am fine with spending that. But we ought to get something for it. There ought to be metrics. There are no metrics. It is pie in the sky, saying we will throw some money at it.

Let me conclude by saying we are at a seminal moment in our country. We will either start living within the confines of realism and responsibility or we will blow it and we will create the downfall of the greatest nation that ever lived.

This bill is the start of that downfall. To abandon a market-oriented society and transfer it to a Soviet-style, government-centered, bureaucratic-run and mandated program, that is the thing that will put the stake in the heart of freedom in this country.

I hope the American people know what is in this bill. I am doing everything I can to make sure they know. But more important, I hope somebody is listening who will treat the ``pneumonia'' we are faced with today, which is the housing and mortgage markets. It doesn't matter how much money we spend in this bill. It is doomed to failure unless we fix that problem first.

Failing that, we will go down in history as the Congress that undermined the future and vitality of this country. Let it not be so."