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Big brother has taken it to a new level, outfitting student Ids with tracking devices at Santa Fe Junior High and Santa Fe High School. Minus a few high profile shootings, schools are generally known as a safe environment for our children. Why then are these schools outfitted school ids with tracking devices that must be worn at all times? Are our students going to school or prison? What is the threat that requires such drastic measures? How many more schools plan on implementing these Orwellian “security” measures? Patrick Mann is a senior and said he feels like he’s in...

New York City officials want to take their smoking ban outdoors. City officials announced new legislation on Wednesday that would outlaw smoking in parks, beaches, marinas, boardwalks That means no smoking in Central Park or on the Coney Island boardwalk. Violators could be issued quality-of-life summonses by the parks department and pedestrian plazas throughout the city.

WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama is prodding the nation's restaurants to add more healthy options to menus, label those items more prominently and market nutritious foods to kids. Speaking to the National Restaurant Association on Monday, Mrs. Obama pleaded with restaurants small and large to take a little butter or cream out of their dishes, use low fat milk and provide apple slices or carrots as a default side dish on the kids' menu. Mrs. Obama said that Americans are spending half their food dollars outside the home and eating a third of meals in restaurants. She asked the...

First lady Michelle Obama is challenging the nation's restaurants to add more healthy options to menus, label those items more prominently and market nutritious foods to kids. Speaking at the National Restaurant Association Monday, Mrs. Obama pleaded with restaurants small and large to take a little butter or cream out of their dishes, use low fat milk and provide apple slices or carrots as a default side dish on the kids' menu.

A pro-family leader says despite President Obama's low approval ratings, he shows no sign of detouring from his message promoting big-government solutions. At a rally in Milwaukee on Monday, Obama said rebuilding 150,000 miles of road, working on 4,000 miles of rail track, and restoring 150 miles of runways would create new jobs for Americans. "We want to change the way Washington spends your tax dollars," said the president. "We want to reform the way we fund and maintain our infrastructure to focus less on wasteful earmarks and outdated formulas, and we want competition and innovation that gives us the...

Apparently Barack Obama is not content to make a federal case out of his immigration feud with Arizona; he just made it an international one. The president’s first-ever report on U.S. human rights to the UN Human Rights Council contains a rich vein of offensive material. So far, one aspect has not been reported: our petty president used the situation to bash Arizona’s immigration law — and possibly transfer jurisdiction over the law from Arizona to the UN. Throughout the report, which sounds like an Obama campaign speech, the president discusses “the original flaw” of the U.S. Constitution, America’s tolerance...

Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico democrat, introduced the Automatic IRA Act of 2010 last week. The new legislation would require all firms with 10 or more employees that don't already offer a retirement plan to automatically enroll workers in an IRA. Workers who don't wish to participate would need to take action to opt out or change the default contribution amount and investments. Here's a look at how this bill, if passed, would affect you: Standardized 3 percent savings rate. Employees age 18 and older who have been employed for at least three months would be automatically enrolled in...

Our daily weather reports, cheerfully presented with flashy graphics and state-of-the-art animation, appear to relay more and more information. And yet, no matter how glitzy the presentation, a key fact is invariably omitted. Imagine if, after flashing the words “extreme weather” to grab our attention, the reports flashed “global warming.” Then we would know not only to wear lighter clothes or carry an umbrella, but that we have to do something about climate change.

“Another World Is Possible” is the slogan of the World Social Forum, an event first convened in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001 as a challenge to the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world’s political and corporate leaders in Davos, Switzerland. The possible world imagined in Brazil (and at subsequent gatherings of the World Social Forum) is based on more cooperative, sustainable, egalitarian and democratic institutions than those favored at Davos. It is designed and implemented from the bottom up rather than the top down, in opposition to both authoritarian state planning and capitalist profit maximization. “Another U.S....

"A coalition of groups is in the very early stages of mapping out a plan to fight fat in Illinois. Sugared beverage consumption has tracked with rising obesity rates – so it's getting some attention. Pop after pop might feel good going down, but it can put on the pounds. That's the case with any higher calorie drink. Illinois Public Health Institute CEO Elissa Bassler said, "Maybe changing the ways we use beverages can be a part of handling obesity." The idea is spreading across the country and here in Illinois, home to the fourth worst rate of childhood obesity....

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said after meeting with President Obama and other senators on Tuesday that he is ready to “scale back” the reach of energy legislation to get Republican support. “We believe we have compromised significantly, but we are prepared to compromise further,” he told reporters outside the White House. “If Republicans can step forward, we can find a place of compromise.” Kerry said that in the meeting with nearly two dozen senators of both parties, Obama was “very clear about putting a price on carbon” and curbing greenhouse gases. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Obama made an “effective...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

"Government can build the infrastructure that allows products and services to reach customers. Government can create incentives -- in clean energy, for example -- that promote innovation and exports. These things are public goods that no business, no individual is going to provide on their own, but that create a favorable environment in which everybody -- companies across the country -- can open and expand. And that's why as part of this new foundation that we seek to build."

Abandoning all loyalty to the democratic processes this nation holds dear, President Obama has made the decision that getting energy tax legislation through Congress with the approval of the American people is just too much of a pain to bother with. Instead he will have the EPA declare as early as next week that CO2 is a dangerous global warming gas and will start regulating its emissions immediately. Obama’s promise to open up vast stretches of ocean on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico to energy exploration is simply a ruse to soften up the public for soon to...

Yes, we did. Finally, President Obama can use those words. The passage of health care reform provided the first piece of incontestable evidence that Washington has changed. Congress is, indeed, capable of carrying through fundamental social reform. No longer will the United States be the outlier among wealthy nations in leaving so many of its citizens without basic health coverage. In approving the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the mid-1960s, Democrats proved that they can govern, even under challenging circumstances and in the face of significant internal divisions. To understand how large a victory this is, consider what...

WTH? All of this change is good? all of the back doors deals? all of the division? all of the divide in our nation? all of the disregard for the people's will?

A new analysis by the Joint Economic Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee minority staff estimates up to 16,500 new IRS personnel will be needed to collect, examine and audit new tax information mandated on families and small businesses in the ‘reconciliation’ bill being taken up by the U.S. House of Representatives this weekend. ..

The Internal Revenue Service would gain sweeping new powers under President Obama's healthcare reform proposals, in what Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are calling a "dangerous expansion" of IRS powers. That's according to a nine-page Republican report from the Committee on Ways and Means on Thursday. It's titled "The Wrong Prescription" Democrats' Health Overhaul Dangerously Expands IRS Authority." Among the new powers the IRS would assume, the report says: The authority to confiscate tax refunds, to impose fines of over $2,200 per taxpayer, and to verify whether taxpayers' health insurance coverage is "acceptable." One measure of the...

Health-Reform Vote Deserves A Reasonable Process March 16, 2010 WE UNDERSTAND the administration's sense of urgency on health-care reform. But what is intended as a final sprint threatens to turn into something unseemly and, more important, contrary to Democrats' promises of transparency and time for deliberation. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday that she is leaning toward a parliamentary maneuver under which the House would vote on a package of changes to the Senate-approved reform bill, and the underlying Senate bill would then be "deemed" to have passed, even though the House had never voted on it. That may...

The final outcome of the health care reform debate is uncertain — who can predict where a writhing eel will land? — but we have learned a few things already. First, we know that President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership could not persuade a majority of Americans of the wisdom of their plan — and have largely ceased to try. As of this writing, a president who seems willing to interrupt prime-time programming on the slightest pretext has not scheduled a speech from the Oval Office to make his final health reform appeal. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is working...

There will be no doubt where lawmakers stand after the dust clears on healthcare, said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who dismissed the controversy over the so-called Slaughter Solution Tuesday. Republicans are crying foul over a proposed rule that would allow for House passage of the Senate healthcare bill without an actual up-or-down vote. Gibbs called the complaints "a legislative process game."

Health Reform: Using a parliamentary trick ironically known as the "self-executing rule," Democrats plan on passing their massive health bill without voting. In November, they'll learn just how "self-executing" it was. Just when you thought Washington couldn't get more corrupt, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week seems intent on trampling representative government itself. Unable to get the votes to pass their U.S. health care revolution, she and her fellow Democratic leaders have figured out a way to pass it without a vote. The "self-executing rule" has been "used to adopt concurrent resolutions correcting the enrollment of measures or to make...

Washington (CNN) -- Five more House Democrats said Tuesday that they will vote against Senate health care legislation, which puts opponents of reform just 11 votes shy of the 216 needed to prevent President Obama from scoring a major victory on his top domestic priority. An ongoing CNN analysis shows that opposition in the House to the Senate health care plan has reached 205 members. A total of 27 House Democrats, including nine who supported the House plan in November, have indicated that they would join a unified Republican caucus in opposing the Senate plan, which passed in that chamber...

know you're not going to listen to me. I'm going to say it anyway, because as a concerned citizen of The United States of America, I must. You are making a grave, perhaps nation-ending mistake. Attempting to "deem" the Health Care bill passed when it has not actually been voted on is not Constitutional. Article 1, Section 7: There are millions of Americans who are extraordinarily pissed off right now. Some of them, like me, write scathing columns on The Internet or we rant on Talk Radio and Television (such as Judge Napolitano) But some just smolder. Some remember the...

According to the Washington Post, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi now plans to use the "deem and pass" strategy to push through the Senate's healthcare reform bill. The strategy would ask for a House vote on a number of reconciliation fixes to the bill. A passing vote on the reconciliation package--which has been more popular among House members than the bill itself--would then "deem" the Senate bill passed, even without a direct vote on the actual legislation. Critics like Thomas Jefferson Street blogger Peter Roff question the legitimacy of the process. Bloleague Robert Schlesinger thinks it's just silly. Pelosi,...

Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday continued to project optimism that [she] could find enough votes to pass health-care legislation, as Republicans hammered them for the process they plan to use to pass the legislation. ... A cost estimate of the legislation has yet to be released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which is likely to push a vote on the legislation into the weekend. Asked about the delay in unveiling the cost estimate and the legislation itself, Pelosi said that "the numbers have to add up" before any text is released. ... House Democrats' plans to deem the Senate bill...

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Deemocrats Mocked: Deem and pass strategy #deemed worthy of a hash-tag By Garance Franke-Ruta The proposed House "deem and pass" vote strategy is already facing one of the most insidious enemies of contemporary political discourse: online mockery. Perhaps because of the resemblance of the phrase to #demonsheep, a hashtag given to a recent bewildering California U.S. Senate race ad, the deem and pass legislative procedure has been given one of its own by opponents on Twitter, where wits and wags have decided that they can play this game at home and #deem things done just by declaring them so. Some...

Even as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scrambles for the 216 "yes" votes she needs to pass President Obama's health care reform bill, strategists on both sides of the partisan divide have begun to debate the political impact of what passage will mean. All sides agree that the overall bill is not particularly popular at the moment. Republicans ascribe that unpopularity to the fact that people know what's in the bill and don't like or want it. Democrats see the current poll numbers as evidence that they have lost the message war in the run-up to passage but once the bill...

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0310/Hoyer_Dems_dont_have_the_votes.html http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/hoyer-defends-controversial-house-procedure/ http://thehill.com/homenews/house/87047-gop-to-try-to-stop-slaughter-solution

The Tea Party protests against the health care reform efforts on Capitol Hill today were smaller than previous efforts -- a rough CBS News estimate puts the total number of protesters around 600 -- but that doesn't mean there weren't fireworks. The video at left shows what happened when the protesters reached the office of Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat. As you can see, as one protester complains of arrogance and uncomfortable-looking young staffers survey the scene, the office door is closed, prompting chants of "liar" from the group outside. The apparent ringleader of the group is then encouraged...

Yesterday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) endorsed the rumored Slaughter Rule to send the Senate passed Obamacare bill to the President without a direct up-or-down vote in the House. Don’t believe those on the left who are trying to argue that because Republicans used deeming resolutions when they were in power, it is ok for Democrats to use a similar tactic to pass legislation without a vote. Under this procedure, the House would vote on a rule setting up debate. The House would then skip a vote on the Senate passed version of Obamacare and move directly to...

During the height of the Cold War, some feared the communists would take over the United States without firing a shot. Could it be that nearly a half-century later, we're on the verge of that becoming a reality? President Barack Obama and Democratic congressmen won their respective elections -- no shots were fired -- and they are feverishly attempting to dismantle this nation's institutions, brick by brick. The American people are getting a bird's-eye view of what the left, which completely dominates the Democratic Party, thinks of the Constitution, freedom and the right of the people to self-governance. The people...

President Obama made another stop on his health care road show in Strongsville, Ohio this afternoon, making the rather odd case that the American people don't want their representatives to look at polls measuring what people want. Wrapping up his speech, Obama said: “The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests. For their future. So what they’re looking for is some courage. They’re waiting for us to act. They’re waiting for us to lead. They don’t want us putting our finger out to the wind. They don’t want us reading...

It’s very fair to send people who disregard the federal mandate to buy health insurance to prison, Nancy Pelosi says, because otherwise they’ll assault citizens … with a bill for medical services … or something. Apparently, the occasionally unhealthy have become such a security risk that we need to imprison them for opting to pay their own way. Infidels Are Cool has the key exchange::

Both the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy approved earlier this year and the version just okayed by Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Democrats (Republicans boycotted the vote) contains an obscure but nasty bureaucratic provision that requires President Obama to act like Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez. Here’s how: The bills require a federal declaration of a “climate emergency” if world greenhouse gas levels reach 450 parts per million. Guess what? The Pacific Northwest National Lab says it is a virtual certainty that level will be reached within a few months. The bill then requires the president to “direct...

Mr. Obama said, “penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their health insurance.”

Advice For Obama: Knock Heads On Health Care He 'could take a few pages from Lyndon Johnson's book,' says Rep. Conyers WASHINGTON - The most senior African-American in Congress offered some unsolicited advice Monday to President Barack Obama on how to get his signature health care bill through a balky Senate: knock their heads together. "The president could take a few pages from Lyndon Johnson's book ... and start knocking heads together," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Conyers, who spoke to reporters in Detroit, first came to Congress in 1965, the year Medicare and...

Hoyer Says Constitution’s ‘General Welfare’ Clause Empowers Congress to Order Americans to Buy Health Insurance Wednesday, October 21, 2009 By Matt Cover (CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that the individual health insurance mandates included in every health reform bill, which require Americans to have insurance, were “like paying taxes.” He added that Congress has “broad authority” to force Americans to purchase other things as well, so long as it was trying to promote “the general welfare.” The Congressional Budget Office, however, has stated in the past that a mandate forcing Americans to buy health insurance would...

Get in shape or pay a price. That's a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law. By more than doubling the maximum rewards and penalties that companies can apply to employees who flunk medical evaluations, the bills could put workers under intense financial pressure to lose weight, stop smoking or even lower their cholesterol.

*Per Live Interview with Mike Tuffin of American Health Insurance Plans: *Regarding "Humana letter" sent out to Seniors (in regards to Obama Health Care proposed policy). *Insurance Companys have been told by the White House to withdraw letter to Seniors. *WH: "STOP SCARING SENIORS" *Mike Tuffin: "Infrigement on Freedom of Speech."

From: Blum, Joanne S. Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 5:00 PM Subject: HELP NEEDED - To Protect State Revenues A Threat to Our Communities A small group of individuals are threatening to jeopardize Massachusetts working families by seeking to qualify a number of initiative petitions. One these would reduce the sales tax which would cut state revenues by approximately $2.5 billion. This would result in cuts in our communities to education, health care, public safety and other programs that we all depend on every day. If you see or have seen any petitioners carrying this or other petitions in your...

President Obama appeared on television yesterday 5 times and it is interesting that very little, if any news, came out of any of them. The guy is worse than a broken record. At least there, we can take the needle off the disc and make it stop. We are not so lucky with Obama. There's nothing we can do but turn off the TV when he repeats the same things over and over again about health care reform the same things he has been saying for months. Every speech, every townhall, every interview he makes the same points, tells the...

Health bill says 'tax' when President Obama said 'not' By: Chris Frates and Mike Allen September 21, 2009 09:06 AM EST In the most contentious exchange of President Barack Obama’s marathon of five Sunday shows, he said it is “not true” that a requirement for individuals to get health insurance under a key reform plan now being debated amounts to a tax increase. But he could look it up — in the bill. Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise...

On a Sunday show, the President offers a revealing definition. President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows yesterday, with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good.

President Barack Obama is poised to abandon attempts to broker bipartisan health care reform and instead push through proposals using only the votes of Democrats. White House officials said they had been forced to take the step by Republicans amid an increasingly bitter debate over the plans. The Obama administration appears set on taking the politically dangerous route of painting Republicans as health care obstructionists despite polling showing widespread concern among Americans. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, told The New York Times that the Republican leadership "has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care...

The goal of the Democrats' plan for health-care reform is coming more and more out into the open: they want to eliminate health insurance. This has turned out to be the most passionate source of public opposition to the Obama health-care bill. People are terrified that they will be deprived of any choice or any control over their own health care if their only option is to depend on the... --snip-- Do the Democrats even understand what insurance is? Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum muses that "Health insurance is a weird industry…. They don't do research, they don't perform...

Vocal crowd turns out for health care forum Wednesday, August 05, 2009 By NATALIE HOFFMAN Register Staff Writer A packed Napa church hosted a boisterous meeting Monday night regarding health care reform. The meeting drew some 500 people to listen to — and occasionally shout at — a panel of speakers that included Rep. Mike Thompson, D- St. Helena. The audience at First United Methodist Church demonstrated varying policy viewpoints. Some asked mild questions, others pointed ones, and still others burst into verbal attacks at panel members. Shouts of “This is America!” and “What’s wrong with profit?” emerged from a...