Daily Archives: December 18, 2009

12/18/09

Don’t Give Up – ObamaCare Can Still Be Stopped!

By: Chuck Muth

ALERT: DON’T GIVE UP!

Government Health Care Can Still Be Stopped!

That’s the message from Congressman John Shadegg, a leading voice in the fight against Harry Reid and Nancy’s Pelosi’s efforts to shove ObamaCare up the nation’s wazoo.

“Washington liberals are on the brink of making our health care system worse, not better, and putting you, your family and your friends at risk,” Rep. Shadegg wrote this week. “Their legislation will increase your premiums and raise your taxes.”

Just what the doctor ordered? I don’t think so.

Shadegg notes that the Senate version of ObamaCare now being debated in the Senate “contains $400 billion in tax increases, many of which start in 2010.”

That’s billion….with a capital “B”!

And it flies in the face of the unambiguous promise Barack Obama made to the people of America when he was running for president last year.

“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”

Then again, technically that’s true.

ObamaCare won’t increase your taxes one single dime. It will, however, as the Wall Street Journal notes, increase “taxes on the middle class by stacks and stacks of dimes.”

“A Senate Finance Committee minority staff report finds that by 2019 more than 42 million individuals and families will on average see their taxes go up because of the Senate bill,” the Journal reports. “And that’s after government subsidies.”

Bend over and cough, Mr. & Mrs. Taxpayer.

And that doesn’t even include the health care premium increases you’re gonna get socked with. Even Congress’ only self-proclaimed Socialist admits it.

“Can I sit up here or stand here with a straight face and say…that if you’re an ordinary person who has employer-based health care that your premiums are not going to go up in the next eight years based on what’s in this bill?” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) said on the Senate floor this week. “I can’t say that. It’s just not accurate.”

WE CAN STILL DEFEAT THIS BILL!

And yet, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama will fight to the death (panel) to force this bill on the American people before Christmas.

Why?

  • Because they see the writing on the wall.
  • They know that the longer it takes to pass this 2,000-plus(!) page bill, the more the American people will learn about it.
  • And the more the American people learn about this effort to do for health care what the government has done for mail delivery, retirement and education…. the less they like it.
  • And the less they like ObamaCare, the less they like Obama himself, and Democrats in general.

THAT’S WHY THEY HAVE TO PASS THE BILL NOW….

….and are pulling out all the stops to do so.

Indeed, they are stopping at NOTHING to cram this down our throats….including legal bribery…. and extortion.

We all know about the now-infamous “Louisiana Purchase” in which Sen. Mary Landrieu sold her vote for ObamaCare to Harry Reid in exchange for $300 million in special benefits for her state.

But blogger Michelle Malkin is reporting this week that Sen. Ben Nelson has now been offered $500 million for his vote…. or else.

As Examiner.com reports, Sen. John Ensign said in a radio interview on Wednesday that Harry Reid “is so desperate to get the 60 votes he needs to pass the bill, that opposition Democrats are being threatened with the loss of key programs in their states if they do not support the bill.”

That reportedly includes a threat to close down a key Air Force base in Sen. Nelson’s home state of Nebraska.

Tony Soprano, call your office!

“Issues before Congress should be decided on their merits, not based on bribes and threats,” declares Congressman Shadegg who rightly characterizes Harry Reid’s actions as “Chicago-style thuggery.”

But probably the worst thing about this plan to nationalize our health care system is the plain, undeniable fact that it will result in health care rationing – like what we’re seeing today with the swine flu vaccine – and unnecessary deaths.

“My 25 years as a practicing physician have shown me what happens when government attempts to practice medicine,” Sen. Tom Coburn writes this week. “Doctors respond to government coercion instead of patient cues, and patients die prematurely.”

So this really is a life or death fight…. literally.

Indeed, columnist Dan Henninger wrote on Thursday that “This is probably the final death struggle for universal health care” and “Anyone remotely opposed to this idea had better step forward.”

And that’s where you come in.

IT AIN’T OVER ‘TIL IT’S OVER!

If you haven’t stepped forward and engaged in this fight yet…it’s not too late.

NOW is the time….because it may be the last chance we’ll have to kill this bill.

TAKE ACTION: Today, tomorrow, this weekend….without fail….please pick up the phone and make just three phone calls to these three senators who remain uncommitted on this bill….

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA)
(202) 224-4024

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)
(308) 631-7614

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
(501) 375-2993

Odds are you’ll get a voice-mail recording. That’s OK.

Senate offices keep a running track of all pro and con calls. The key is to FLOOD their offices with calls and messages in opposition to this bill.

So just leave your name and a short message saying you oppose the national heath care bill. That’s all you need to do.

If the lines are busy (and we hope they are!)….don’t give up. Call back until you get through.

EACH OF THESE THREE SENATORS NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU….NOW!

Frankly, your calls now are all that stands between us and a DMV-like government-run health care bureaucracy….which will raise both your taxes and your premiums….while driving down the quality of our health care system….and ushering in the same kind of government rationing we’ve seen with swine flu vaccinations this winter.

So please, stop what you’re doing RIGHT NOW…. pick up the phone…. and make those three phone calls before it’s too late.

Yours in Liberty,

Chuck Muth, President
Citizen Outreach

P.S. We beat HillaryCare in 1993. And we can beat ObamaCare in 2009. This fight CAN BE WON! Please call Sens. Webb, Nelson and Lincoln TODAY!

12/18/09

Nevada News & Views – December 18, 2009

By: Chuck Muth
Nevada News and Views

TODAY’S NN&V HEADLINES

  • Jon Ralston’s “Face” to Go Statewide (Las Vegas Sun) – The Greenspun Corporation and Sunbelt Communications are proud to announce the award-winning news discussion program “Face to Face with Jon Ralston” will begin airing statewide on January 4.
  • Lowden: My Views on Abortion Have Clearly Changed (Sue Lowden) – I am personally pro-life and should I be fortunate enough to defeat Harry Reid and be elected, I will legislate as a pro-life U.S. Senator. Unlike Harry Reid, I would never write or support federal legislation that includes taxpayer-subsidized abortion.
  • Rory Reid Slams Gibbons, Announces Ethics Reform Plan (Sean Whaley/Nevada News Bureau) – Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid today released an ambitious plan for ethics reform in Nevada, saying he is offering “common sense” changes to the way state government does business.
  • Gibbons: Nevada Won’t Miss Race-to-Top Funding Opportunity (Stacy M. Woodbury) – Last Friday, as I was in this room listening to the presentations of speakers at the Legislative Committee on Education, I received an e-mail newsletter from the U.S. Department of Education with the following quote from Secretary of Education Duncan from a December 10, 2009 speech at the National Conference of State Legislatures’ Fall Forum:
  • Unemployment Rate Drop Due to Smaller Labor Force (Sean Whaley/Nevada News Bureau) – Nevada’s unemployment rate fell for the second consecutive month in November, declining six-tenths of a percentage point to a seasonally adjusted 12.3 percent, but the drop was attributed to a decline in the state labor force.

Click here to read these stories at the Nevada News & Views site!

MUTHS TRUTHS

A Forced Gesture

Assembly Republicans declared this week that they were taking a voluntary 4.6 percent pay cut to show solidarity with state employees who had their pay reduced by the 2009 Legislature. “A promise made, a promise kept,” boasted Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert in the first and only press release coming out of her shop since the last session.

Sounds all fine and dandy, except….

The Republicans only agreed to actually fulfill the promise they made after Anjeanette Damon of the Reno Gazette-Journal reported last weekend that only ONE state legislator, Assemblyman Ed Goedhart (R-Amargosa Valley) had actually put his money where his rhetoric was more than seven months after the session ended.

If not for the newspaper story, no one thinks for the minute that these Republicans would have followed-up on their commitment.

And the promise made during the legislative session was to take a 6 percent cut, as was being proposed at the time, not 4.6 percent. Goedhart returned 6 percent, not 4.6 percent.

And the cut was supposed to be on the full salary legislators earned during the session, not on the pittance they pocket after the session for participating in “interim” committee hearings and such.

Goedhart wrote a check for 6 percent of the $8,777 he earned during the session. Gansert wrote a check for 4.6 percent of the approximately $800 she has earned SINCE the session ended.

Still, at least Assembly Republicans did SOMETHING…..even if they had to be “guilted” into doing it. Democrats, supposedly the party of the working stiff, has stiffed everybody. You see, Democrats only spend OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY.

The Full Monte

Has the final nail been driven into Gov. Jim Gibbons’ political coffin?

Republican insiders always assumed that Monte Miller, an influential financial supporter, would go down with the ship alongside Gov. Gibbons. Last man standing and all.

Miller has been the governor’s staunchest and most-outspoken defender for the last three years in GOP circles. He and I have butted heads a dozen times on columns I’ve written critical of the governor. And on almost every occasion, the easy-going, highly likeable Miller has told me he believed “Gov. Jim” was the state’s last, best hope for fiscal conservatism and would go down in history as one of Nevada’s greatest governors.

But on Tuesday, Miller hosted a major fundraiser for the governor’s primary opponent, Brian Sandoval.

“Brian has the best chance of being elected,” Miller told the Las Vegas Sun. “Everybody can see that in the polling. I made a political decision to support Brian Sandoval.”

Or as the political saying goes, no permanent friends, no permanent enemies…just permanent interests. I mean, what’s next? A truce between me and Bill Raggio?

Miller says he still holds Gibbons in high regard and considers him a friend, but politically-speaking, he also now sees the writing on the wall. And when you lose someone that close in your inner circle, it’s bad. Really bad. Maybe unrecoverable bad.

OTHER NEWS & VIEWS

  • One of the worst government failures in Nevada history has been the government owned-and-operated University Medical Center (UMC) in Las Vegas. It is Exhibit A in the case against government-run health care, losing a staggering $83 million taxpayer dollars last year. Is it time for Rory Reid’s all-Democrat Clark County Commission to open their eyes and privatize?
  • A banner week for the Clark County government owned-and-operated school district as one teacher was arrested for fondling a student and another got caught denying that the Holocaust ever happened. But school vouchers for parents so they could get their kids out of this system would be bad, right?
  • The Las Vegas Monorail-to-Nowhere is, to no one’s surprise, on the brink of BK.
  • Liberal blogger and tax addict Hugh Jackson says there’s no evidence that corporations would pass on a new corporate income tax to consumers by way of higher prices, while blogger Dullard Mush points out that Microsoft opened a facility in Reno pretty much for the sole purpose of avoiding the corporate royalty tax levied by the company’s home-office state of Washington. You have to be blind to reality to think businesses don’t value a low-tax environment over big-government services when they consider where to set up shop.
  • Campaign historian Craig Shirley says Reagan ranks as one of the four greatest American presidents of all time.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

  • “The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows support for the health care bill being debated on Capitol Hill falling to 32%, with 47% of voters opposed and the remainder having no opinion or undecided.” – Political Diary, 12/17/09
  • “Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told CNSNews.com that Congress has the authority to force individual Americans to buy health insurance because the U.S. Constitution ‘charges Congress with the health and well-being of the people.’ However, the words ‘health’ and ‘well-being’ do not appear anywhere in the Constitution.” – CNS News, 12/17/09
  • “I would vote to have a personal income tax.” – Nevada state Controller Kim Wallin (D), CityLife, 12/17/09
  • “Congrats to Jon Ralston & Co! Moving over to megalomaniac Jim Rogers should be a helluva lot of fun to watch! Show of hands here: Who doesn’t see Jim Rogers taking the chair on Face-to-Face when Jon is on vacation…or maybe pulling rank as co-interviewer about two weeks into the new arrangement?” – Blogger Mike Zahara
12/18/09

Proud Flag-Waving Communists and Socialists March in Copenhagen to Stop Global Warming

From: Americans for Prosperity

Take a look at what else the climate change protesters in Copenhagen are promoting.

—————-

Today, President Obama is at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. This morning he spoke from the same podium that Venezuelan socialist strongman Hugo Chavez used to decry the “silent and terrible ghost” of capitalism – to declare that “capitalism is the road to hell.”

The enraptured global warming radicals at the Copenhagen conference rewarded Chavez with a standing ovation for his anti-freedom diatribe, telling us everything we need to know about the modern radical environmental movement headed by Al Gore.

If you have any doubt that many global warming extremists are self-proclaimed communists and socialists – CLICK HERE for an AFP video showing these extremists marching through the streets of Copenhagen.

President Obama had an opportunity to stand up and defend the economic freedoms of our great nation, which have made America the greatest and most prosperous on earth.

Instead, he chose to pander to his adoring supporters abroad, saying: “America will fulfill the commitments that we have made: cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050 in line with final legislation.”

Clearly, President Obama wants to join these radicals in signing a binding international treaty that will bring cap-and-trade-style energy taxes and energy rationing to our nation.

As you know, we were in Copenhagen last week for a briefing we beamed back live to 24 grassroots events across the United States (from Billings, Montana to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and in between). Thousands more watched from home or work on our AmericansforProsperity.org website.

Without a doubt the most frustrating moment of the Copenhagen trip was sitting in the American pavilion at the convention center as Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency head, Lisa Jackson, gleefully touted the EPA’s new finding declaring that carbon dioxide endangers human health and welfare. The room full of mostly Europeans applauded wildly.

Ms. Jackson’s introducer, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark, talked about all she had done as in the director of New Jersey’s state EPA. What irony…New Jersey has one of the worst economies in the nation – people are really hurting – in part due to Lisa Jackson’s job-killing heavy-handed regulatory policies. Now the Obama administration hopes she “does for the United States what she did for New Jersey.”

So far, Americans for Prosperity activists have logged more than 13,000 comments telling EPA to obey its mandate and leave climate legislation to the people’s elected representatives. If you haven’t taken action yet, click here to help stop EPA’s power grab before the December 28th deadline.

We face a long hard fight to overturn or at least mitigate the potentially devastating impact of this EPA “finding” in coming months and years. Speaking in carefully coded environmental-speak, Ms. Jackson discussed what her 18,000 EPA bureaucrats have in mind for small businesses, large corporations and even families. We must and we will hold Congress responsible if they fail to stop what the EPA is trying to do.

I talked to many individual environmental leaders and activists from Greenpeace, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, members of the U.S. delegation, EPA bureaucrats, and activists from other smaller groups. They’re true believers. In their view only the government can step in and “fix” this problem by forcing individuals to dramatically change their lives, to pay more taxes for the privilege of using energy or creating jobs. Capitalism is THE culprit in their morality tale. Those with a different view are dismissed as ignorant simpletons or denounced as greedy robber barons who must be stopped.

There is no room for compromise in their world.

If we’re going to protect our freedoms and preserve a free market that has pulled generations from the muck and misery of grinding poverty, then we are going to have to defeat them in the public arena.

The good news – the American public agrees with us. Every poll shows support for cap-and-trade policies going downhill. The legislation is dead for this year, after most pundits thought it a done deal earlier this year.

The bad news – from what I saw firsthand in Copenhagen – our opponents have nearly unlimited financial resources, committed grassroots troops of their own, and deeply entrenched organizations that think strategically and act aggressively.

We’ve got to be innovative, aggressive, confident, strategic and on message. Most of all – we have to fight each and every day.

And, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Tim Phillips

P.S.: A quick update on the health care battle. Yesterday Senators Tom Coburn and Jim DeMint made clear they will do everything within their powers to slow down and stop Harry Reid’s attempt to force this Washington takeover on the American people. We salute these free market heroes. It looks like, if Harry Reid gets his way, the first key cloture vote to end debate could be this Sunday night/Monday morning at 1AM, an outrageous attempt to take over our health care in the dead of night! It’s expected to be down-to-the-wire. I’ve been hearing the Senate switchboard is melting with your phone calls! Keep those calls coming – tell your senators to vote NO.

12/18/09

Announcement: Birth of Jerry Tarkanian, Jr.

My wife Amy and I hope you will join us in welcoming Jerry Daniel Tarkanian, Jr. into the world.

He was born yesterday weighing 8 lbs. 2 oz. I can report that Amy and Jerry, Jr. are doing well – and as Ronald Reagan used to say, we already know he’s a conservative because his eyes are open!

Most importantly, my daughters Ava, Ashley and Lois finally have a little brother!

Thank you again for all your prayers and expressions of support.

Best wishes,

Danny Tarkanian
Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada

P.S. We have opened a guest book at Tark2010.org/guestbook.

12/18/09

NEW POLLS: Conservatives Soaring!!!

BRAND NEW POLL RESULTS ARE IN – AND WE’RE WINNING!

Fantastic news, fellow conservatives. Lots of fantastic news actually!

A series of new polls show that we are winning as the 2010 elections approach. Here’s the rundown:

*A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that the Tea Party Movement has now eclipsed BOTH the Democrat and Republican parties in popularity. Poll results – HERE.

*Another brand new poll shows the conservative candidate for U.S. Senate in Florida, Marco Rubio, has surged ahead and now tied the liberal RINO candidate, Charlie Crist. Crist was a big proponent of Barack Obama’s scam stimulus plan. See those poll results – HERE.

*And we’re saving the best for last! Senator Harry Reid’s poll numbers have been plunging – thanks in part to contributions made by individuals such as yourself which have funded our “Defeat Harry Reid” campaign and also the campaigns of conservative Republican challengers to Reid.

Now a new poll shows that Reid trails ALL THREE of the major Republican candidates challenging him, including the proud conservative champion, Sharron Angle. See the great news – HERE.

All this week we have been quietly working on our latest “Defeat Harry Reid” TV ad. We’re frantically raising money NOW so that we can launch the new ad right after New Years Day. So we need your help to step up the campaign to dump Harry Reid.

And we have an incentive to offer if you’ll support this effort.

For anyone who contributes $100 or more will be given a complimentary copy of the Tea Party Express 2010 calendar.

And yes, we’ll send you a complimentary calendar for each $100 you donate. So if you contribute $200 you’ll receive 2 calendars, with a $300 contribution you’ll receive 3 calendars, etc…

And if you make your donation by Friday, December 18th at 3:00 PM (Pacific) we will have the calendar sent to you in time for Christmas.

Again, you can make a contribution of any amount from $5 up to the maximum allowed $5,000 online – HERE. We need to raise over $500,000 by the time of the tour launch so we can make a significant impact on the upcoming 2010 elections.

If you prefer, you can contribute by mailing in a contribution to our finance headquarters:

Our Country Deserves Better Committee
ATTN: Tea Party Express Project
770 L Street #1020
Sacramento, CA 95814