This past Monday, we trained our guns on the SS Obamacare; we aimed for the waterline.  The smoke hasn’t yet cleared, but we’re pretty sure it’s taking on water in a big way.  Our case attacking the constitutionality of Obamacare is in the federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi.  The government filed a motion to have our case dismissed, and yesterday we filed our response, which can be found here:  Response to Government’s Motion to Dismiss

Judge Keith Starret will now have to decide many issues, including whether the individual mandate is a tax or a penalty.   On October 14, Florida’s Attorney General received a powerful ruling in his state’s attack on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) from the federal District Court for the Northern District of Florida.  The opinion in that case says that the “individual mandate” is a penalty, not a tax.  That ruling is vital, because the Constitution gives Congress a great deal of power when it comes to taxing us, but not nearly so much when it comes to penalizing us.  There’s also a very old statute called the Anti-Injunction Act that the government is using as a defense, which only applies to lawsuits against taxes.

In short, the government is saying “we win because this is a tax.”  The only problem is that the mandate is quite clearly not a tax.  The individual mandate is simply a command by our government that each individual who does not have health insurance coverage go out and buy it, whether he or she wants it or not.  This dictate is enforced with a penalty — either buy the insurance, or face the penalty.  Congress specifically called this provision a “penalty” eighteen different times in Section 5000A alone; not one time in over 2,700 pages did Congress ever refer to it as a “tax.”   Even President Obama has insisted that the individual mandate is not a tax.

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Today, in 1985, Windows 1.0 is released. It turned out to be a big deal.

I applaud the Senate for passing the Claims Settlement Act of 2010, which will at long last provide funding for the agreements reached in the Pigford II lawsuit, brought by African American farmers, and the Cobell lawsuit, brought by Native Americans over the management of Indian trust accounts and resources. I particularly want to thank Attorney General Holder and Secretaries Salazar and Vilsack for their continued work to achieve this outcome. I urge the House to move forward with this legislation as they did earlier this year, and I look forward to signing it into law.

This bill also includes settlements for four separate water rights suits made by Native American tribes. I support these settlements and my Administration is committed to addressing the water needs of tribal communities. While these legislative achievements reflect important progress, they also serve to remind us that much work remains to be done. That is why my Administration also continues to work to resolve claims of past discrimination made by women and Hispanic farmers against the USDA.

From the Associated Press:

The Senate has approved almost $4.6 billion to settle long-standing claims brought by American Indians and black farmers against the government.

The money has been held up for months in the Senate as Democrats and Republicans squabbled over how to pay for it. The two class action lawsuits were filed over a decade ago.

The settlements include almost $1.2 billion for black farmers who say they suffered discrimination at the hands of the Agriculture Department. Also, $3.4 billion would go to Indian landowners who claim they were swindled out of royalties by the Interior Department. The legislation was approved in the Senate by voice vote Friday and sent to the House.

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In a new Fortune piece, former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., Chairman of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, hits out at President Obama saying he needs to make some “halftime adjustments” including “order[ing] his department heads and agency chiefs to declare a moratorium on new regulations until further notice.”

The critique is timely, given news that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski is engaged in a less-than-stealthy, renewed effort to ram through net neutrality regulations in advance of a Republican takeover of the House that will see one of several opponents of net neutrality assume chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a leading contender for the job, recently wrote in a policy memo that “The FCC’s regulatory compass is broken as it continues in its unrelenting pursuit to impose so-called network neutrality regulations, regardless of whether the agency has the legal authority for such a blind power grab.”

In addition, Ford’s urging of a regulatory moratorium will no doubt hearten Gulf state residents concerned about an ongoing, de facto “permitorium” preventing the resumption of drilling operations in the region in the wake of the BP disaster, and subsequent drilling moratorium, earlier this year.

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Warning: Immature Subject Matter.

Viewer discretion is advised

Approximately 75 seconds

“44 Ways to Say TSA” is produced by Ted Balaker, edited by Austin Bragg, and written by Balaker, Bragg, Hawk Jensen, Alex Manning, Jacob Sullum, and Zach Weissmueller.

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The race is over.  Republican Renee Ellmers has defeated incumbent and Democrat Bob Etheridge in the hotly contested NC-2 congressional race.

Back in June, Big Government’s Mike Flynn broke this explosive video on Rep. Etheridge where he assaulted a college student for asking him if he “supported the Obama agenda.”  Flynn closed his article with this:

Let’s recap what we saw on this video. A sitting Congressman–a presumed living extension of James Madison and other founding fathers–was asked on a public street whether he supported the President’s agenda. His response was to hit away a video camera and assault a student. The age of Pericles this ain’t.

It is going to be a long, hot summer. But, you’ve been shown a politician who can be beaten this November. Act accordingly.

And “act accordingly” NC voters did–even though some in the liberal media did try to spin that Etheridge was ambushed by GOP operatives–offering that narrative without any proof whatsoever.

Proof we do have, however, is that of Etheridge’s character.

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The President of the United States was swept into office two years ago promising to bring change to Washington, starting with a more transparent and ethical government. In fact, Obama declared, “transparency and the rule of law would be the touchstones of this presidency.” Apparently, not everybody in the White House read the interoffice memorandum.

Following the BP tragedy, the White House commissioned the Secretary of the Interior to provide a safety report on offshore drilling. Secretary Salazar pulled in a panel of seven outside advisors to assist in his analysis of the safety of offshore drilling, and provide recommendations for going forward. A final draft of this report was sent to White House Climate Czar Carol Browner’s office before being forwarded to the president. Last week, it was reported that Browner’s staff edited the document to imply that the outside advisors recommended a drilling moratorium, when in fact this was not true. The tailored draft was given to the president, and the policy was made.

Whether or not the recommendation of outside advisors would have changed minds regarding the drilling ban is debatable. What isn’t debatable is the resulting economic destruction in the Gulf from President Obama’s decision based – in part – on information from a falsified document.

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Former presidential advisor and best-selling author Dick Morris believes that newly elected Republican legislators in Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania and other states will explore school choice options to help remedy huge budget deficits.

In an interview with EAGtv, Morris said the failures of the nation’s public education system are obvious, and are tied to a lack of competition and choice inherent in the capitalistic system America was founded on. The reality of enormous state budget deficits will force newly elected lawmakers to return to those principles, Morris said.

“They are going to say ‘Well, do I want to spend $13,000 per student in a public school, or a better education at $8,000 in a charter school,’” Morris told EAGtv. “I think they are going to see the value of the $8,000.”

National School Choice Week, which runs January 23 – 29, will be a key factor in highlighting education options available. (more…)

Author’s Note: BIG TIME UPDATE follows below.  Things are indeed looking bad for freedom.

We have heard a great deal since the November 2^nd Democrat electoral thumping about the (deserved) demise of the ridiculous notion that is Network Neutrality (NN).

After all, 95 Democrats pledged their election-eve support for it – and ALL 95 of them went down to defeat.  And the group with whom they pledged their NN fealty – the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) – raised a pathetic amount of money on the issue – either less than $300 or less than $100, depending upon which page of their website you believe.

And then Europe – to whom the pro-Net Neutrality forces turn for direction on nearly all things – announced they would not be imposing NN.

These were just the latest in a LOOONG line of Net Neutrality losses of support and supporters.  The remaining pro-NN gaggle could convene in a phone booth (if they could find one).

So there have been of late proclamations aplenty of the expiration of Network Neutrality.

I have not been one of the exuberants.  As I said while speaking out of doors on video on the subject, the November 2^nd election was – for ridding ourselves once and for all of Net Neutrality – the best of times.  And perhaps the worst of times.

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By sticking with Nancy Pelosi as their leader once again, one has to wonder if House Democrats are denying reality. Whether it’s 9.6 percent unemployment, record debt, the government takeover of health care, or cap and tax, the Pelosi agenda was sent packing in 2010 to the tune of over 60 House seats.

The decision to reanoint Nancy Pelosi is the equivalent of giving the American people a fruitcake for the holidays. And let’s face it – nobody really wants a fruitcake! Sadly, the similarities between the embarrassingly unpopular duo don’t stop there.

According to recent polling data, “Leader” Pelosi’s approval rating just before the Republican electoral tsunami was at 29 percent. That is painfully low and represents a total rejection of the failed policies she championed over the course of her infamous Speakership. But, to look on the bright side of things, Pelosi is still more popular than fruitcake, which received the approval of 28 percent of the people. Maybe over the course of the next two years the fruitcake will rebuild its image and overtake the embattled soon-to-be former Speaker in the polls.

At Citizens United, we are rolling out a little early holiday fun. This week we launched www.pelosifruitcake.com and a parody web ad campaign that highlights the obvious: nobody wants a fruitcake. Please share with your family, friends, and co-workers. Season’s Greetings!

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The U.S. Federal Reserve was brutally criticized last week for initiating Quantitative Easing II (QE II) – a new $600 billion dollar scheme to inflate the money supply and stimulate the economy.  Was Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s already aware that the $600 billion dollar European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was about to be tapped out.

In May, the European Union gathered in a show of strength to halt the continental debt crisis with the “shock and awe” of a $145 billion cash rescue of Greece.  Predominately funded by Germany and France, the EFSF was trumpeted as guaranteeing a decade of fiscal solvency for the infamous PIIGS: Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.  Sovereign debt markets rallied and the media extolled the virtues of 450 Europeans banding together to prevent the debt crisis’ contagion.

Six months later European bond markets are once more in shambles, as interest rates paid by the PIIGS has again skyrocketed.  Ireland is the latest casualty in this game of dominos, after investors began the massive dumping of Irish bonds and pulling money out of Irish banks.

No longer is the tell tale sign of bank run evidenced by lines of desperate depositors waiting for the doors of the local bank to open.  In 2010 a click of a mouse key can move billions of dollars from one country to the next.  The graph below demonstrates why there are probably millions of mouse keys clicking all over Europe right now.

Although Ireland denies any intention to seek a Greek style bailout, teams of bankers from the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund arrived last night to discuss how to “stabilize” the Irish state-guaranteed banks.  If stabilize is the new code word for preventing immediate default, is “QE II” the new code word for the U.S. bailout?

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Today, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

Cameron Poe is back, and he’s getting an enhanced pat down (just like you).

This holiday travel season, we’re all convicts.

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If you are upset about the Orwellian TSA screening procedures in effect in our nation’s airports, too bad.

Our country has gone back to sleep, reverting to a 9/10 military posture vis-à-vis the Jihad being waged against us infidels. How can you tell? Once again, Progressive Americans are treating terrorists as though they are simply criminals who should face justice in a civilian-criminal court of law. When Yemen sends crotch and printer bombs, we send in the FBI. This was the 9/10 (or) Progressive response to the Jihad, which made possible the events of 9/11.

Another example of our return to a 9/10 mindset can be found in our reactions to Islamists declaring Jihad against us. When Osama did it in 1996 (FROM YEMEN), the West yawned. Who was this sandman to declare war on us, we thought. Only we declare war – nobody else has that power or capacity, right? Once again, Jihad has been declared against us, now by the Muslim Brotherhood directly. The West is yawning once more.

When we briefly adopted a 9/12 posture against our Islamist enemies, they were too busy running and hiding and dying, to be planning and launching multiple attempts to blow us out of the sky. Our enemies seem to have all the time and breathing room in the world now though, inspiring the question: What ever could have changed over the past couple of years, leading to this new “normal” of repeated Yemeni-Jihad bomb plots? Oh well, we could wonder for hours and probably never put our finger on it.

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It has been a bad PR week for the TSA, which is having its proverbial privates examined by the Internet.  The TSA’s new genital examinations and X-ray scanners, known by the charming colloquial “dick measurers” by TSA personnel, have prompted horror stories from outraged citizens who choose to opt-out of the invasive and possibly dangerous X-ray scans only to be promptly felt up by TSA’s trained staff of Junk Grabbers.

It’s a good thing the TSA wouldn’t hire sex offenders.  Oh, wait…

Chief Public Molestation Advocate Janet Napolitano is lamely defending the stepped up airport security, but she seems to have taken her talking points from Lois Griffin.  I’ll summarize it for you: “If we can’t grab your junk, the terrorists will win.”
The TSA’s John “Tiny Pistol” Pistole took it a step further in an astonishing display of sack, arguing that we should really be blaming the outraged travelers:

“I think it’s irresponsible to say, ‘let’s opt out and not try to go through any type of security screening or something that would cause significant delays at the airport on the busiest travel day … of the year.’ “

The Drudge Report posted this (admittedly, 2007) picture under the headline “The Terrorists Have Won.”  Here, a potentially dangerous and psychopathic Catholic nun terrorist who possibly hates us for our freedom is being felt up by a hijabi-clad Junk Grabber prostrate on her knees.  Oh, the irony!

I don’t know if the terrorists have won, but we certainly seem to be losing.

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