Republicans must return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and states' rights.
The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We're spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyper inflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for Federal government control of ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, & NATIONAL HEALTH CARE.
Obama is a bad joke. He is more of a cult leader than a President. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed. Fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people were in pain, and the mantra of "change" caused people to act emotionally. Any Democrat would have won this election. The only surprise was the result being as close as it was.
In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it'll be a dogfight. 2012 will be all about the economy.
Most Americans (62%) agree that the Fourth of July is one of the country’s most important holidays. That figure is up four points from last year.A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only four percent (4%) think the holiday celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence is one of the least important . Thirty-two percent (32%) consider it somewhere in between the most and least important holidays.
Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but a steady dedication of a lifetime.
During the entire year, Mr. Wolf attempts to promote the principles of our founding fathers who authored the the Declaration of Independence and codified the supreme law of the land in the United States Constituitution. This weekend I am celebrating the holiday at the poker tables in Thackerville, Oklahoma, home of the WInstar World Casino Poker Room on the banks of the Red River.
Enjoy the holiday weekend. We have a lot of work to do starting Monday. Our country is in crisis under the leadership of the ObamaNation and the the Democrat Party.
Follow the daily Rasmussen polls here: www.rasmussenreports.com/
www.americansolutions.com/energytax/2009/0
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Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, and wants to "level the playing field" with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA on Great Britain or Canada.
His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, & NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada .
Obama surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they're going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama's not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive (fascist) bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says.
Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States , but more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America , as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!
Obama is handing out "goodies" and hopes that the bill (and pain) will not "come due" until after he's reelected in 2012. Obama blames all problems on Bush from the past, and will blame his successor in the future.
In short, Obama has a huge ego and is a narcissist.
I also can't believe how fast this year has gone. Even in the wake of my January kidney stone, its been one of the best years of my life. After 32 years of working for federal bureaucrats, I can tell you with 100% certainty that you don't want the federal government running your health care system (or anything else). The federal government is at least 50% overstaffed and undoubtedly the most inefficient operation in America.
On CNBC today, Larry Kudlow reported that federal, state, county, and local governments now account for 40% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Think about that. This is no longer a country that our founding fathers would recognize. We are moving farther away from capitalism and closer to socialism each and everyday. Life is great for my wife and I but what about the vast majority of the hard working people in this country?
We live in a democracy and our elected officials are in place because they were legally elected. We have nobody to blame but ourselves for the mess. Voters have note paid attention to their government and have not held their elected officials accountable.
Ask yourself if you are better off today than you were five years ago. More importantly, will you and your children be better off ten years down the line? It's not too late to do something about it.
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Rasmussen reports this week that sixty (60) percent of voters say they trust their own judgment on economic issues more than President Obama’s. Only 30 percent trust Obama more. Distrust of Obama is even higher now than it was when the same question was asked in February. Then, 49 percent trusted their own judgment more than Obama’s, while 39 percent trusted Obama more.
According to Rasmussen, Republicans trust themselves more than Obama by a 75% to 19% margin. The findings for voters not affiliated with either major party are virtually identical. But Democrats are much more closely divided, with nearly half trusting the president more.
Rasmussen also finds 74 percent of Americans trust their own judgment more than that of the average member of Congress when it comes to economic issues facing the nation. Only 13 percent trust the average Congress member’s judgment more, while 12 percent are not sure who knows best.
Distrust of Congress is higher among independents than it is among Republicans and Democrats. Seventy-nine (79) percent of independents trust their own economic judgment more than Congress, higher than Republicans at 77 percent and Democrats at 69 percent.
Libertarians are the only party to agree.
Libertarians opposed the first round of Republican bailouts of banks, opposed Democrat bailouts of automakers and has opposed both older parties’ consistent record of economic meddling that has brought economic collapse and higher unemployment.
Libertarians were also early and consistent opponents of the Obama “stimulus” package. Sold as a means of keeping unemployment below eight percent, new figures from the Labor Department find Americans are now suffering from a 26-year high record of 9.4 percent unemployment.
That’s why Libertarians have a better idea. Restrain government to its role of policing fraud and force in economic transaction, cut taxes on investments, repeal unneeded and often anti-competitive regulations and free up America’s employers to create the jobs Americans need.
Join the Libertarian Party www.lp.org/
Mays was on a plane that blew a tire upon landing at Tampa International Airport on Saturday. He told FOX 13 that he suffered a bump on the head during the rough landing.
"But I got a hard head," he joked afterwards.
twitter.com/realbillymays
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Republicans voting yes:
Congressman Mary Bono, California 202-225-5330
Congressman Mike Castle,Delaware 202-225-4165
Congressman Mark Kirk Illinois 202-225-4835
Congressman Frank Lobiondo New Jersey 202-225-6572
Congressman Leonard Lance New Jersey 202-225-5361
Congressman John McHugh New York 202-225-4611
Congressman Dave Reichert Washington State 202-225-7761
Congressman Chris Smith Trenton New Jersey 202-225-3765
Starting today, it's time to recruit as many people as we possibly can to join our side. This is about our jobs. This is about our economy. This is about our future. And this is about our willingness and courage to stand up to over-reaching politicians and the machine that they are trying to run in Washington, DC.
The lines have been drawn in the sand, and we have a lot of work to do. We must begin today.
If you want to know where your representatives stand, please look below.
clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll477.xml
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“One of the great follies in legislative history.” That’s how John Hinderaker at Powerline describes the bait-and-switch — I mean the cap and trade — bill that is due to be voted on in the House of, er, Representatives imminently.
As with the 1000-page non-stimulating stimulus bill that Obama shoved down your throat mere days after he assumed office, this bill will go largely unread by the people you elected to (among other things) oversee the country’s finances responsibly. Let me mention that bill’s sponsors, Henry A. Waxman and Edward J. Markey, are up for re-election in 2010, something the readers in California and Massachusetts will want to think about when they wake up to what the bill would mean to them. As Hinderaker points out, if enacted, the Waxman-Markey climate confusion bill would “create a convoluted federal bureaucracy that would control key sectors of the economy and of our lives.”
The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.Really, this bill should be called the decapitate and strangle bill, because what it would do is systematically hobble the U.S. economy by starving it of affordable energy. Why? Because of a misplaced faith in the virtue of using less energy. It’s a version of spiritual smugness like that emitted by eastern yogi, health nuts, and others who believe that the extent of their asceticism is a reliable index of their enlightenment.
Representative Waxman cites a misleading number from a preliminary analysis conducted by the Congressional Budget Office estimating that the bill would cost the average household a mere $175 a year. Cheap to save the planet and give yourself a daily pat on the back, what? But as the Journal points out the real cost is likely to be $1,870 a year for a family of 4 in 2010, a figure that rises to $6,800 by 2035 as various restrictions take effect.
Bottom line: “Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history.” I’m not sure anyone has been able to dramatize this effectively.
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"It looks like President Obama’s big-bang health-care reform is going down to defeat. This is good. But my question is why do we need it at all? According to a recent ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That could mean up to 250 million people are happy. So why is it that we need Obama’s big-bang health-care overhaul in the first place?
There’s more. According the U.S. Census Bureau, we don’t have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take college kids plus those earning $75,000 or more who chose not to sign up, that removes roughly 20 million people. Then take out about 10 million more who are not U.S. citizens, and 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid but have not signed up for some reason.
So that really leaves only 10 million to 15 million people who are truly long-term uninsured.
Yes, they need help. And yes, I would like to give it to them. But not with mandatory coverage, or new government-backed insurance plans, or massive tax increases. And certainly not with the Canadian-European-style nationalization that has always been the true goal of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.
Instead, we can give the truly uninsured vouchers or debit cards that will allow for choice and coverage, and even health savings accounts for retirement wealth. According to expert Betsy McCaughey, instead of several trillion dollars and socialized medicine, this voucher approach would cost only about $25 billion a year.
But the Democratic agenda has never really been about just the uninsured. And it certainly hasn’t been about real cost-cutting or true market choice and competition. Nor has it been about tort/trial-lawyer reform. Instead, the Democratic agenda has always been a class-warfare, anti-business attack on private-sector doctors, hospitals, insurance firms, and drug companies. It’s all about control, knocking down their profits, and telling them what to do.
Because government planners know best, right? Wrong. Absolutely wrong. "
You see, the “Cap-and-Trade” bill currently in the House is really nothing more than a thinly disguised energy tax that will hit every single American.
And now Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats are pushing this tax hike toward a vote that could come as soon as Friday.
By invasively manipulating an already over-regulated energy industry, this legislation seeks to fix an alleged problem that has recently been discredited by over 31,478 scientists -- including over 3,803 with specific expertise in atmospheric, earth, and environmental sciences.
All 31,478 of these scientists are trained to understand and evaluate the scientific data relevant to the human-caused global warming hypothesis -- and are speaking out against government “remedies.”
With this bill, Congress is once again just doing what it does best -- fleecing taxpayers to further an alarmist agenda.
You see, energy companies just pass the costs of these draconian regulations through to the consumer in the form of huge price increases.
As a result, you will pay higher gas prices, higher electric prices, and higher costs for goods.
Barack Obama has estimated the costs of this legislation to American taxpayers to be over 650 BILLION dollars over the next eight years, and that figure is no doubt just a fraction of the real cost.
But even that modest estimate amounts to hundreds of dollars a year in increased living expenses for every family -- and will more likely cost thousands a year.
And according to the Heritage Foundation, between 1.2 and 2.3 million jobs could be lost over the next ten-years due to the bill’s stifling regulations.
This current economic crisis is no time for Congress to consider both raising prices on hard-working Americans AND costing them jobs.
That’s why we must act now to send a message to Congress to reject this disastrous Cap-and-Tax Scheme.
Call your U.S. Representative now and ask for the staff member that deals with Energy policy. Politely but firmly tell them that you are opposed to this costly government power grab.
Supporters of the legislation are of course trying to downplay the cost of this scheme to the American people.
But if the bill does not directly and massively increase energy costs to consumers, how would it possibly achieve its stated aims?
It is only through these massive cost increases -- mandated and enforced by the federal government -- that the dubious goal of reducing carbon emissions could possibly be reached. The only alternative to huge energy price increases would be massive, government-ordered power outages, leaving Americans literally in-the-dark like some war-torn Third World Country.
Contact your Representative and voice your opposition to Cap and Trade BEFORE it is too late. (202) 224-3121
www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml
Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.
After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.
President Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, supported the idea of a national Father's Day. Then in 1966 President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day. President Richard Nixon signed the law which finally made it permanent in 1972.
Have a very Happy Father's Day today!
Everyday, BO puts another nail in the coffin. Monday it was socialized medicine based on made up statistics and Obama Facts, which, in reality are all lies and distoritions. Today, it's the over haul of the financial regulation's system, which takes us from bad to worse, as does everything that BO touches.
Enjoy life in America while you can. We are not even close to hitting bottom. Open your eyes. Stop being Obama Sheep. Unemployment, taxes, government spending, trillion dollar deficits, and radical Islamists are all on the rise. Unfortunately, it appears, we as a nation will have to hit rock bottom before we decide to try and stop this bullet train to fascism and class war far.
I worked for the federal government from 1976-2008. FEAR this continued and rapid federal expansion and control. Get your money OUT of the stock market NOW. Convince the Republican Party that our only hope is returning to the values and constitutionally sound policies advocated by the Libertarian Party. Seriously, we are a nation in trouble. This is the calm before the storm.
Mr. Wolf is in Las Vegas until June 25. Follow my adventures on Twitter twitter.com/BonzerWolf
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Complications abound when identity stolen is a patient’s
Scott Bennett has gone to Las Vegas Valley hospitals for medical care dozens of times in the past five years — impressive for a Texan who hasn’t set foot in Nevada since 1998.
The real Scott Bennett is a 45-year-old engineer who works at the Federal Reserve Bank in San Antonio. The Clark County patient is a fake Scott Bennett, a 56-year-old drifter named Ronald Adkins who stole Bennett’s identity, authorities allege.
Adkins goes to a hospital and, months later, Bennett gets a collection letter. The bogus Bennett has racked up more than $20,000 in hospital charges that the bona fide Bennett must prove aren’t his.
Although medical identity theft makes up only a small portion of all identity theft crimes — about 3 percent of cases reported to the Federal Trade Commission in 2007, or roughly 250,000 known victims annually — it’s a growing fraud that experts say can be far more destructive than other forms of ID theft. People who discover their bank accounts have been compromised can dispute charges and set up credit monitoring services. People whose medical identities are stolen, however, have no clear-cut way to correct inaccurate records or challenge false insurance claims. Straightening out stolen health care is a red tape nightmare, complicated by strict patient privacy laws and the paper-shuffling bureaucracy of insurance providers.
This isn’t just maddening, it’s potentially dangerous. An impostor’s medical procedures can contaminate the victim’s records — if the fake Bennett gets a Type A blood transfusion, for example, doctors looking through the real Bennett’s records after a serious car accident might reasonably assume it’s the type he needs, even if that’s incorrect.
Read the rest of the story here www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/14/com
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An affiliate of the company that holds ownership interest in the Fontainebleau Miami Beach has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization for some of its entities.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas LLC and two of its affiliates – Fontainebleau Las Vegas Holdings LLC and Fontainebleau Las Vegas Capital Corp. – filed bankruptcy petitions in Miami late Tuesday. The Miami Beach hotel is not included in the filing.
The company said in a news release that the decision to file Chapter 11 was the direct result of litigation with lenders on the Las Vegas hotel construction project that had to do with contractual disputes related to nearly $800 million in construction funding for the $2.9 billion resort-casino project, which is 70 percent complete. Lenders include Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase Bank and Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas.
The legal dispute has effectively shut down the project and “put thousands of people out of work,” said Howard Karawan, chief restructuring officer of Fontainebleau Las Vegas, in the release. “Our goal now is to secure funding to complete this world-class project and restructure our existing debt.”
Fontainebleau Las Vegas reached a provisional agreement with a group of its non-defaulting lenders for the use of cash for the administration of its bankruptcy case, and is in negotiations to obtain financing to restart construction on that project.
Fontainebleau Miami Beach, which is a separate legal entity, continues to operate as normal. Turnberry West Construction, the project’s general contractor, is also not included in the filing, according to the news release. In 2008, Nakheel Hotels of Dubai bought a 50 percent interest in the Fontainebleau Miami Beach for $375 million.
The Las Vegas hotel companies that filed bankruptcy are based in South Florida because the Soffer family of Aventura, which also owns the Turnberry development and construction companies, owns all the Fontainebleau companies.
Jeffrey Soffer is a principal of umbrella company Fontainebleau Resorts LLC, according to state records.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas also withdrew without prejudice its $3 billion lawsuit in Las Vegas against some of its lenders, and refiled the case in Miami bankruptcy court, where the Chapter 11 petitions were filed.
The lawsuit with lenders was amended on May 12 to include allegations that Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas was “seeking to destroy the Fontainebleau in order to minimize competition” with the nearby Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino, which is wholly owned by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary.
"This claim is an attempt by the Fontainebleau's developers to distract from the fact that they have breached their loan covenants. We will defend ourselves vigorously against this meritless allegation," Deutsche Bank spokesman John Gallagher said in an e-mailed response.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas LLC lists more than $1 billion in debt and a similar amount in assets on its petition, with more than 1,000 creditors. The only South Florida creditor listed was International Bedding in Fort Lauderdale, with a claim of $498,737.
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From the Sporting News- Craig Custance www.sportingnews.com
The severity of the injury was clear as Sidney Crosby struggled to get off the ice in the second period. A punishing check from Johan Franzen sent Crosby into the boards. He jumped to avoid it, but the hit pinned Crosby's knee between Franzen's hip and the ledge with the boards meet the glass.
While a Joe Louis Arena crowd cheered loudly as Crosby inched his way to the bench, the realization started to sink in that this Game 7 wouldn't play out like the Stanley Cup-winning game Crosby had dreamed about.
"I took my skate off and tried to move it around," Crosby said. "I couldn't really walk."
All the painkillers and grit in the world couldn't change reality. After a short shift in the third period, Crosby realized he couldn't stop or turn.
It was then that Crosby made the gutsiest decision a captain can make. He was going to watch the rest of the way as his teammates tried to win a Stanley Cup without him.
It was tempting to go out there and play while injured. But that would have hurt his teammates more than anything. It could have cost them a championship.
"I knew playing against guys like (Henrik) Zetterberg and (Pavel) Datsyuk, I couldn't afford to make one wrong step," Crosby said. "I just had to stick with it and watch it from there."
As painful as the knee injury was, not playing in the final minutes of the biggest game of his life was worse.
It was excruciating.
"Being a captain and seeing what the guys are doing out there, blocking shots," Crosby said. "Seeing how intense it was, it was even more painful to see it go like that. But you get to a
Maxime Talbot noticed Crosby's pain. During the second intermission, Talbot said it was pretty clear the chances of him returning were slim.
"He was pretty down," Talbot said.
It wasn't talked about much, but it didn't need to be. The Penguins had to win this game. They couldn't let the player who led them to this
"He knew that we could do it," Talbot said. "I'm proud to say that we did it in a big part for him."
A Stanley Cup championship was deemed Crosby's destiny even before he skated a shift in the NHL. But there is no anointing a Stanley Cup -- it can only be earned.
Reaching the moment where he raised that silver trophy above his head is something Crosby has been working toward since arriving as a teenager. He knew more than most that this wasn't about destiny. It was about drive.
"Every day he thinks about hockey, everything he does is about hockey," Talbot said. "He loves the game. And you know what? Today is so special to win that for him -- with him."
$20 futures bet made at the Palms Casino on April 8 returns $260 to the Wolf when he returns to Vegas on Sunday!
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elated
Opening a new front in the government’s battle against Internet gambling, federal prosecutors have asked four American banks to freeze tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to people who play poker online.
The frozen payments of at least $33 million are owed to 27,000 players at four offshore poker sites, including PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com, according to John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, an advocacy group for online poker players.
Stephen Cohen, a spokesman at Citibank, a unit of Citigroup, confirmed that the bank had received a request from prosecutors. He said that as a matter of policy Citibank complies with such requests.
Wells Fargo, which received a court order to freeze the money, said it had a policy to comply with “valid instructions to seize funds” but declined further comment. It is not clear whether the other banks received court orders or simply requests.
I. Nelson Rose, a professor of law at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa, Calif., and a specialist on gambling law, called the government’s move a surprising and significant new effort to police wagering on the Internet.
“It’s very aggressive, and I think it’s a gamble on the part of the prosecutors,” Mr. Rose said. He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, as opposed to the money of the companies involved.
Web's Poker Winners Face Delays in Collecting - General * US * News * Story - CNBC.com- Mood:
FROZEN
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