Free Speech and Religious Freedom Are Rights

Healthcare is NOT a 'right'

What is really at issue is not whether healthcare is a "right," but whether citizens have a right to taxpayer-funded healthcare. What other cherished American "right" has ever required that we diminish another's liberty? Does the right to free speech require newspaper owners to print every op-ed and editorial? Does the right to bear arms require the government to arm its citizenry? Does the freedom of religion require government-funding of churches, mosques, and synagogues? Of course not!

Next Up:Amnesty For Illegals

You can count on it. They think they have a mandate. They think they can get away with anything. They can for now. But November is coming.

Today Collectivized Health Care – Tomorrow Amnesty For Illegal Aliens – What Will That Bring Next November?

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Senate health care bill. If I were a committed Leftist like Barack Obama, what would I do next? You can bet that enough voters back home are going to feel sufficiently betrayed by their representatives’ collectivization of the nation’s health-care and insurance that a shift in power toward the Right could come during the next November mid-term elections. So, without stopping to take another breath, I would immediately begin the push for a quick Amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens in this country.

Depending on whose estimates you would like to believe, there are anywhere from eleven million to fifty million people who are living within the United States, right now, in felonious violation of our immigration laws. They are here via de facto
invitation, by virtue of the refusal of our elected and appointed powers that be to enforce existing immigration law and protect our borders. Don’t look now, but the Amnesty move is already underway The Washington Post ran a heart-rending story today, covering a mass D.C. demonstration in favor of that Amnesty:

Dissing SCOTUS Is Bad Karma

Attorney: Obama's remark reflects 'mob rule' mentality

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has taken issue with President Obama for comments during the State of the Union address.

During his speech in late January, the president criticized the Supreme Court for its
recent decision on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. "With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said while six of the nine justices were seated before him.

Speaking in Alabama on Tuesday, Roberts acknowledged anyone is free to criticize the court -- but that "the setting, the circumstances, and the decorum" must be considered. "The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling," said the chief justice. (See earlier article)

Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel believes Roberts' comment about the president's statement as being "very troubling" is generous. Barber contends the administration has become more of a "mob rule."

Would that be "mob rule" as in a group of angry people, or "mob rule" as in Chicago style politics? No regard for the rule of law in either case, but the latter is deliberate and planned.

Only If We Allow It

Will Politically Incorrect Opinion Become a Hate Crime?

If a “human relations” task force in California has its way, the answer will be yes. Its victims are two Lancaster, Calif., city officials: Mayor R. Rex Parris and Councilman Sherry Marquez. Their sins? Parris told a group of Christian ministers, “We are growing Christian community — and don't let anybody shy away from that.” And Marquez posted quotations on her Facebook page from Muslim leaders encouraging adherents to win the world for Islam along with excerpts from the Bible that encourage Christians to defend themselves.

Mayor Parris had expressed his sentiments previously as well, during a State of the City address; this prompted a federal civil-rights complaint by the Council on American-Islamic Relations based on the separation-of-church-and-state principle.

Now, while the mayor didn’t violate the the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause (properly understood), this isn’t surprising given how it is almost universally misinterpreted and misapplied. But now some are pushing the envelope and wish to do to freedom of speech what has already been done to freedom of religion.

Jody Brown at OneNewsNow.com reports that “according to the Antelope Valley Press, the local human relations task force will convene on Monday evening [February 8] to discuss whether those remarks could potentially be ‘hate incidents.’

Darren Parker, chairman of the task force, tells the newspaper that if the mayor's comments are so deemed, ‘a complaint will be made to the [federal] Justice Department’ and to state and county district attorneys.”

Wow, let’s get this straight:

In the “land of the free and home of the brave” you could conceivably be charged with a hate crime for expressing opinions and desires?

"Purity" Test

The only thing missing is restoring the Constitution and Bill of Rights. As long as candidates will pledge to serve no more than 3 terms and place Constitutional requirements on legislation, they will get elected.

I really could care less what the party machine thinks or does. The grassroots will place into nomination the people we think will uphold our Founding Principles.

OneNewsNow
GOP purity test proposed
The vice chairman of the Republican National Committee is promoting a proposed resolution that would warn 2010 GOP candidates that if they do not respect the party's "conservative values," they will not receive the financial backing or endorsement of the RNC.

The ten conservative principles, as distributed by the RNC, are as follows:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill.

(2) We support market-based healthcare reform and oppose Obama-style government-run healthcare.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap-and-trade legislation.

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing healthcare rationing and denial of healthcare and government funding of abortion.

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

What To Do In Afghanistan

A national defense analyst and Pentagon advisor says there's clearly division among the president's national defense team about what course of action needs to take place in Afghanistan.

The White House said on Monday that leaving Afghanistan is not an option President Barack Obama is considering. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the president is undertaking a thorough review of the U.S. policy in the war that is about to enter its ninth year. The debate over whether to send as many as 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a major element of a strategy overhaul that senior administration policy advisors will consider this week as they gather for top-level meetings on the evolving direction of the war.

Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis (USA-Ret.) says the divide among Obama's advisors on what strategy to pursue in Afghanistan is obvious. "I know that Vice President [Joe] Biden has vocalized what I consider a counter-terrorism strategy, which essentially would only have sufficient number of forces, drones, and the like to go after al-Qaeda and some of the insurgents rather than trying to secure villages and large populated areas, which traditionally is done in counter-insurgency strategy," says Maginnis. "General McChrystal's additional troop increase request is to allow him to secure these large, populated areas."

Obama has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House to confer on Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Say Goodbye to Your Employer Healthcare Benefits

The longer they talk, the more likely it is some of the truth will come out.

Dems confess hopes to eliminate private healthcare

Yet another liberal lawmaker on Capitol Hill has acknowledged that the public option healthcare proposal being promoted by President Obama and Democrats on Capitol Hill is a "Trojan horse" for a single-payer socialized healthcare system.

Earlier this summer, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) told CNSNews.com that he agrees with President Obama that a single-payer healthcare system has worked well in some countries. Congressman Frank reportedly cited Scandinavia as an example. Frank was confronted at the National Press Club last week by the group Single Payer Action, which asked him why a single-payer system was off the table. "Apparently because we don't have the votes. I wish it weren't. I'm all for it. I'm a big sponsor," he admitted. Frank is referring to his support for H.R. 676, The United States National Health Care Act, which has 85 congressional co-sponsors. He says trying to push a single-payer bill through Congress before getting a public option approved would be "suicidal."

Full Court Press for Abortion Doctor's Murder

But Heaven forfend that the same Justice Department investigate the cold blooded, pre-meditated murder of a young soldier, in broad daylight, in middle America, by a nutjob turned mooslim jihadist "freedom fighter". No mooslims in the woodpile, but you know those pro-life nutjobs are everywhere and they have to be stopped.

Do I detect a double-standard here or is it just my cynical nature? You think they might be on a fishing expedition?

Pro-life 'smear' suspected in DOJ's Tiller inquiry

One pro-life leader is questioning the motive behind the Justice Department's announcement of a probe to determine if others were involved in the murder of abortionist George Tiller.

Late Friday afternoon, the DOJ made it clear that it believes other individuals or groups may have been involved in Tiller's shooting on Sunday, May 31. The agency's press release stated it will "work tirelessly to determine the full involvement of any and all actors in this horrible crime, and to ensure that anyone who played a role in the offense is prosecuted to the full extent of federal law." (See earlier story)

Is it a legitimate investigation -- or a political payoff from the Obama administration to the pro-abortion movement? Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, believes politics could be a motive. But she suspects there may be more behind the announced investigation than meets the eye. "This may be more of a nefarious effort than it appears on its face," she exclaims, "that in fact, the Department of Justice may be trying to smear pro-lifers, as if we all belong in the same camp, as if we all advocate violence, when it's [actually] just the opposite."

Naw, no double-standard here.

Terry McAuliffe and Global Crossing

You should think very hard about allowing a Clintonista anywhere near the Governor's Mansion.

Investment questions dog McAuliffe in Va. gov race

In a governor's race that's all about jobs, Terry McAuliffe is facing questions about huge profits he made from a company that collapsed two years later, leaving 10,000 people unemployed.

The multimillionaire businessman and former Democratic National Committee chairman, a close friend of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, is pledging to use his business savvy to land more jobs for his state than any of his fellow governors.
But since he entered the race in January, he's been dogged by questions about his investments in telecom giant Global Crossing. He faces two opponents in a June 9 primary.

In 1997, McAuliffe sank $100,000 into the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based startup's bold plan to link North America and Europe with a trans-Atlantic fiber optic cable, a super-fast conduit for voice, video and digital data.

"When I invested in Global Crossing, understand that it was a very risky deal," McAuliffe said in an Associated Press interview about his finances. His return was $8.1 million, mostly on the sale of 176,017 shares in 1999, the year Global Crossing stock peaked beyond $60 a share.

He could have made much more _ closer to the $18 million in some published reports _ had he sold all of his shares in 1999. Stock transaction records he provided to the AP show his last shares were sold in January 2002, after the company's stock had plunged to 14 cents per share. And, as McAuliffe notes, he was never a board member or officer of the company.

When Global Crossing filed for bankruptcy protection that year, investors lost $54 billion and 10,000 employees lost jobs. Even after 2008's spectacular Wall Street failures, Global Crossing's bankruptcy still ranks among the largest in U.S. history.
McAuliffe's most bitter primary rival is pounding him on it. State House Democratic Caucus leader Brian J. Moran's only television ad, which debuted last week, accuses McAuliffe of "working insider deals for himself."

Moran maintains the jobs lost at Global Crossing counter McAuliffe's claims that he can generate jobs for Virginia.

Business savvy my ass. Just another greedy, heartless, blood-sucking dhimmicrat who will do more damage to Virginia's economy than Timmy ever thought about doing.

Hate Crimes Legislation Update

All crimes are "hate" crimes. The perpetrator "hates" that you have more than he does, that you have a job, act responsibly. If they liked you, they wouldn't rob you, hit you, or murder you. Stuffing this legislation down the throats of the American people is just one more way the dhimmicrats can exert control on behavior and by extension, your speech and your beliefs.


http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=500474
A conservative activist closely monitoring the hate crimes" legislation pending before a House committee says although the measure still poses a threat to the religious freedom of Christians who speak out publicly against homosexuality, the foundation of the bill has been removed.

Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee had planned on holding a vote on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act yesterday, but due to a large amount of Republican amendments to the bill, the vote was postponed until this morning. The bill would add homosexuals and transgender people to the list of protected categories under federal hate crimes law. Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, notes that Democrats were forced to eliminate a key portion of the bill -- the findings section.

"We exposed the fact that they have fraudulent claims that there was an epidemic of hate against homosexuals and drag queens, transgenders -- and that claim was the foundation of the bill," she notes. "They claimed that homosexuals are fleeing across state lines to avoid persecution, and that perpetrators are crossing state lines to commit crimes against these gays, lesbians, and transgenders, and that they have trouble purchasing goods and services or finding employment. We nailed them on the fact that that's a lie."

Lafferty says during yesterday's markup hearing, Democrats neglected to mention that in America -- a country of 300 million people -- there have been only 1,521 cases of hate against homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people. The Judiciary Committee hearing resumes at 9:00 a.m. Central time today. A vote on the House floor is expected next week.