Brownsville Tea Party Association

Archive for the ‘Health Care’ Category

What good is having a super-majority House in the Texas Lege if our Republicans are going to ignore the Conservative mandate the voters sent them in November, and instead — behind the exceptionally failed “leadership” of Speaker Joe Straus — are going to vote for more government intrusion and more government regulation while diminishing personal freedoms and liberties?

In this case, I’m talking about the statewide smoking ban (as an amendment on Senate Bill 1811):

The Texas House tonight passed an amendment to create a statewide smoking ban.

The close vote, 73-66, came during debate on the enormous budget-related bill, Senate Bill 1811.

The amendment by Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, was one of a few opposed by the measure’s House sponsor, Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, that actually passed.

The amendment would ban smoking in public places, which would include bars and restaurants because they are places where anyone would be welcome.

But some of Crownover’s tea party-leaning Republican colleagues fought her on the amendment because they believed it would infringe on rights of business owners.

No, we don’t believe it would infringe on the private property rights of business owners, we know that it infringes on the private property rights of business owners. What other legal activities is the House comfortable with prohibiting? What legal activity are they going to go after next?

Making sure that we find a good Conservative candidate to primary Ms. Crownover when she’s up for re-election should be one of the top priorities of Conservatives. Right along side of putting Speaker Straus out to pasture as well.

This still has to make it through the Senate, those Republicans haven’t shown much more of a Conservative backbone than their House counterparts.

UPDATE and Correction:  I was looking at the wrong record vote. My representative, Paul Workman (R-HD 47) voted NO to this freedom-robbing bill. Good for him. I originally posted that he voted in favor of it.

Business owners and a free market should be allowed to decide if smoking is permitted in a private business or not. If there is no market for a bar where smoking is permitted, then it will fail on it’s own without any government intrusion, as expressed by Rep. Jose Aliseda, R-Beeville, who succeeded in exempting pool halls:

“I am not a smoker, but I believe that a private business owner should have the right to choose their own business model.”

Well, at least we have at least one Conservative in the House GOP. In November 2012, we will look to add a bunch more Conservatives to the Texas Legislator (by kicking out a bunch of Republicans). Yeah, I’m talking about you, specifically Mr. Workman. I hope you enjoyed enriching all of your construction industry buddies and personal interests as best you could in your freshman session, because you are one-and-done, sir.

Investor’s Business Daily

• Editorial: ObamaCare Is No Longer A Law - The Law: Already bruised and unpopular, ObamaCare has now been issued a death sentence. Yet the White House says it will “proceed apace” with its implementation. Has anyone there heard of checks and balances?
• Would We Drill For $200 Oil? - Energy Security: As unrest spreads in the Middle East, threatening oil transport and oil-rich kingdoms, our laughable energy policy may come home to roost. Better get those wind turbines spinning in a hurry.
• Stalling On Fan, Fred - Home Finance: Fannie and Freddie are still bleeding losses, costing taxpayers billions more each month. Yet the White House continues to delay reforms, in defiance of a congressional order.
• Egypt Means Real Trouble For Israel - Middle East: No matter what ends up replacing President Mubarak and his harsh government, history may rewind to the 1970s for Israel — with the Camp David Accords possibly erased in the process.
• Only In Gov’t Do All Benefits Justify Costs - Despite the old saying, “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” the Environmental Protection Agency is doing just that.
• The Revolution In Middle East Is Growing Up - Nobody said it better than Hosni Mubarak: “Our eventual goal is to create an equal society, not a society of privileges and class distinctions. Social justice is the first rule for peace and stability in society.” But that was in November 1981, a few weeks after he had become president of Egypt.
• IBD/TIPP Poll: A Country That Knows What It Wants - Public Opinion: The latest IBD/TIPP poll finds that Americans want decisive action taken to solve some of our biggest problems. But they also recognize the difference between real problems and the fake ones that politicians dwell on.

 Laura Ingraham

• Sen. Orrin Hatch on immigration and the tea party – February 01, 2011 (mp3)

Mark Levin

02/01 The Mark Levin Show

American Thinker

• The Story of the Egyptian Revolution - A day-by-day account from Cairo, written by a sophisticated Egyptian analyst.
• The Left and Their ‘Good Victims’ - The left divides the world into good and bad victims.
• Egypt, the United States, and the Ghost of Khomeini - There is still hope that Egyptians won’t display the naïveté of the leaders of the Iranian democratic forces.
• There’s No Abe Lincoln in the Muslim Hood - There are only bad choices.
• Radical Islam or Mainstream Islam? - If the majority of Muslims adhere to Sharia law (at least in their hearts), then we must confront the possibility that “Radical Islam” is actually mainstream Islam.
• The British Left’s Betrayal of America - The latest revelations that Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government advised Libya on how to secure the release of the Lockerbie bomber may have destroyed the Anglo-American relationship.
• Judge Vinson Also Smacks Down Crony Capitalists - Perhaps almost as pleasing as the affirmation of individual freedom and the dismissal of a government-run society is the smack-down Judge Vinson’s ruling gave to the concept of “crony capitalism.”

FrontPageMag

• Red Carpet for Islamists - Mubarak out, Brotherhood in.
• Obama’s Brotherhood Moment - The president endorses the Muslim Brotherhood and helps pave the way for the Islamic Republic of Egypt.
• Hezbollah’s Lessons - What Egypt’s Islamists learned about grabbing power from their brethren in Lebanon.
• You Say You Want a Revolution? - The dire warning 1979 Iran gives 2011 Egypt.
• Obama’s Secret - Stanley Kurtz joins Jamie Glazov’s new video series to expose the President’s disguised radical agenda.
• The Egyptian Crisis’ Green Roots - How the Left’s biofuel-induced starvation exacerbates instability in the Third World.
• Brushfire in the Middle East - Regional uprisings continue to spread — who will be the next to fall?
• Holocaust Hypocrisy - When will leftists who use Holocaust imagery to attack Israel be held accountable?
• CAIRing for Anwar al-Awlaki and Other Targets of Interest - A radical Muslim group works hard to hinder the FBI’s efforts and to support terror.

Investor’s Business Daily

•  Editorial: Terror In Waiting  - Mideast: As the radical Muslim Brotherhood schemes to oust a pro-American despot in Egypt, U.S. pundits have cheered the move as a boon for freedom. This is dangerous pablum.
•  Egypt’s Kerensky - Succession: As talk of deposing Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak grows, one name keeps popping up: Mohamed ElBaradei. If he takes over, it’ll be a disaster not just for Egypt, but also for the U.S. and the West.
•  The Newest Nation - Africa: Far from the rage in the streets of Cairo, there’s joy in the air in the tiny cities of South Sudan. A referendum’s results there should lead to creation of a new nation. It holds some lessons.
•  Egyptian Plagues, American Policies - Diplomatic Ineptitude: Western diplomats were long ago planting poisonous seeds in Egyptian soil. All it took to make them grow was for the U.S. to send some well-intentioned but misguided signals at the wrong time.
•  ObamaCare Can’t Be Reconciled - Health Care Reform: Another federal judge has declared the Democrats’ overhaul to be unconstitutional. A law that should have never been passed is that much closer to being dismantled.
•  Kill The Internet ‘Kill Switch’ - Censorship: Virtually the first thing an authoritative Egyptian government did to quell dissent was to shut down its Internet. So why are we debating a bill to give our government the same power?
•  America’s Next Financial Crisis Is Already Here - In spite of talking about freezing government spending, President Obama reminded everyone during the State of the Union just how out of touch he is about the defining issue of our time — the fiscal dysfunction that threatens to rob future generations of today’s living standards and jeopardizes the global financial system.
•  Middle East Is On The Verge Of Convulsing - Things are about to go from bad to worse in the Middle East.  An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is nowhere in sight. Lebanon just became a Hezbollah state, which is to say that Iran has become an even more important regional power, and Egypt, once stable if tenuously so, has been pitched into chaos.

Laura Ingraham

• Gov. Mitch Daniels on China’s rise and a social issues ‘truce’ – January 31, 2011 (mp3)

Mark Levin

01/31 The Mark Levin Show

American Thinker

• Obama’s Ongoing War on Inspectors General - One after another, inspectors general have been reporting that Obama’s stewardship of taxpayer money has failed.
• Overachievers with Low Self-Esteem - America is up to its eyeballs in people concerned with saving us from their demons.
• Obama’s Rathole Moment - President Obama got matters exactly backward when he addressed education last week before a joint session of Congress.
• Obama’s Standing Army of Regulators among Us - The victims of today’s excessive government regulatory zeal face the same enemy confronted by the nation’s Founders: unconstrained centralized power.
• Stop the Fraud — Freeze the Debt Ceiling - The debt ceiling is a key to stopping the political insanity.
• What Reagan Meant to America - Seven years ago, when Reagan died, millions of Americans waited for hours to share a brief moment with this greatest of contemporary Americans.
• China’s Insight into Human Nature - And why President Obama misunderstands China’s rise.
• America and the Middle East Food Riots - Obama policies have driven up food prices, triggering riots.

Frontpage Mag

• Middle Eastern Moment of Truth - Israel soberly prepares to stand alone in a sea of hate.
• 1979, 1989 or 2009? - Gauging the nature of Egypt’s Revolution — and the urgency for America’s response.
• Why Coptic Christians Fear a Revolution - If the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Egypt…
• Inside Egypt - The growing cancer I witnessed during my recent visit…
• To Destroy Israel - A member of the Army of Islam escapes from an Egyptian jail amidst the chaos — and shares his top priority…
• ObamaCare Inches Closer to the Fall - Florida judge rules that the president’s signature legislation is unconstitutional — what’s next?
• Free Speech Victory: Lars Hedegaard Acquitted - The battle for freedom is far from lost…
• The Middle East’s Intifada - The Muslim Brotherhood shrewdly maneuvers its way to power in Egypt.
• The American Left and the Crisis in Egypt - The Unholy Alliance rears its head once again.
• Dictatorships and Revolutions - As an Egyptian Muslim raised during the generation of the 1952 Egyptian revolution, I see history repeating itself.
• Egypt’s False Prophet - Mohamed ElBaradei’s disturbing affinity for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Islamic Republic.
• Why They Hate Mubarak - “He is supporting Israel. Israel is our enemy…”
• The Criminal Truth in Denmark - In defense of Lars Hedegaard. . . .and our civilization

Investor’s Business Daily

•  Editorial: Obama’s Tribute To Big Government - State Of The Union: If President Obama’s intention Tuesday night was to shift the inspiration away from the forces arrayed against him, his hour-long paean to government spending failed. “Sputnik” has crashed.
•  Carol Browner Goes, Draconian Policies Stay - White House: With cap-and-trade seemingly dead and EPA’s regulatory authority under attack, the administration’s climate czar is abandoning ship. Too bad she’s not taking the administration’s energy policies with her.
•  Obama Misses Main Point Entirely - Budget Policy: Of all the disappointments of President Obama’s State of the Union speech, none looms as large as his failure to address the fiscal problems. Does he not know it’s getting worse, not better?
•  Perspective: Bachmann’s Response To Obama: Ours Is The Indispensable Nation - Two years ago, when Barack Obama became our president, unemployment was 7.8% and our national debt stood at what seemed like a staggering $10.6 trillion dollars. We wondered whether the president would cut spending, reduce the deficit and implement real job-creating policies.
•  On The Right: Federal Money Hasn’t Bought Better Schools - ’We’re going to have to out-educate other countries,” President Obama urged this week. How? By out-spending them, of course! It’s the same old quack cure for America’s fat and failing government-run schools monopoly.

Laura Ingraham

• Newt Gingrich on Obama: ‘A clever speech that was fundamentally dishonest.’ – January 26, 2011 (mp3)

Mark Levin

• 01/26 The Mark Levin Show

American Thinker

• Making Obama a One Term President - Regardless of his rebound in the polls, Barack Obama is no shoe-in for reelection. Here’s how the GOP can win.
• Stanley Ann Dunham and the Left’s Exploitation of Women - The left has terribly exploited women and their sexuality. Was Obama’s mother a victim?
• Sex and Sarah Palin - Sarah Palin is a last-chance test of our cultural health.
• I Wish I Were a Democrat - Life would be so much more enjoyable.
• Honor Killing in America - The trials of two “honor killers” are under way in America this week.
• Obama’s Dangerous Export Initiative - Avoiding the useful, embracing the outright dangerous.
• Should Military Spending Be Cut? - In the game of chicken that is national politics, it was sure that the left would pounce upon excessive defense spending as a way of reducing the deficit.
• Excuses, Excuses - What we saw Tuesday night was not a new Obama.

RedState

• SOTU 2011: The Man on the Moon & the Union Sputniks - To sum it up simply, Tuesday’s SOTU spectacle seemed to be nothing more than an empty, disingenuous, vacuous speech hidden behind an Orwellian Oceania of teleprompter turnspeak that pundits will interpret for a week or more only to discover that Andy Kaufman’s singing of “It’s a Friendly World” had more intellectual honesty than the President’s speech. [Simple, right?]

Investor’s Business Daily

• Editorial: ObamaCare Unravels; House Votes To Repeal - Repeal: The House voted by a wide margin Wednesday to rescind ObamaCare. Critics sniff that the vote was merely symbolic and therefore a waste of time. But this decision carries some weight.
•  China Isn’t Ready To Lead The World - China: Listening to the media, you’d think Chinese President Hu Jintao’s U.S. trip is nothing less than a symbolic transfer of world leadership from an America in decline to a China in ascendancy. Not by a long shot.
•  Mega-Mosque’s New Foundation - Islamofascism: Ground Zero mosque promoters think they’ve found a less radioactive frontman for their project. But their new imam appears worse than the one they’re sidelining.
•  ‘Baby Doc’ Buffoonery - Democracy: The return of ex-dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier to Haiti last Sunday was weird stuff, but logical in a failing state run by foreign aid groups. What Haiti needs is not bigger government, but freer markets.
•  Viewpoint: John Kennedy And The First Amendment - Fifty years ago today, when John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to be elected president, there was controversy. Many Americans still believed that a Catholic was simply not qualified to hold that office.
•  On The Right: Political Class’ Vision Blurred By Its Hubris - It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, and in a recent speech that seemed like Larry Summers’ swan song, the president’s departed economic adviser warned that America is “at risk of a profound demoralization with respect to government.”

Laura Ingraham

• Mike Huckabee slams Obama’s state dinner for President Hu – January 19, 2011 (mp3) NOTE: Laura reveals that Mike Huckabee currently leads the race of GOP presidential contenders in an Iowa poll.  Huckabee is definitely going to run in 2012, IMO.  And he’s going to be tough to beat.

Mark Levin

• 01/19 The Mark Levin Show

American Thinker

• Report Card on Obama’s First Two Years by K.E. Campbell
  Numbers don’t lie.
• King Abdicates by Pamela Geller
  Rep. Peter King appears to be squandering an opportunity in his forthcoming hearings on radicalization among American Muslims.
• Flying the Terrorist Flag in Washington by Mark Cantora
  In the Middle East, a symbol is never just a symbol.
• Green Follies Escalate in the Face of Failure by Ed Lasky
  Those widely heralded compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) turn out to be a bit of dud in the real world.
• Race, Propaganda, and Schoolkids by Peter Wilson
  A fascinating window into the fun-house mirror world of race theorists, racial “scholars,” and a good part of the anthropology profession. More
• Liberals Who Hate Profits but Profit from ‘Green Jobs’ by Fred N. Sauer
  How to make big profits with no capital of your own and a product that can’t compete in the marketplace.
• Would You Write for the New York Times? by Alicia Colon
  I recall when the New York Times was a bona fide prestigious and noble member of the Fourth Estate.

The Rise of the LEFT Under OBAMA

By Jon Bauman
Woodlands, TEXAS

Happy New Year???

My prediction for 2011 is that it will be dominated by federal regulatory excesses; so much so that the conventional wisdom that Obama is going to “move to the center” to “ensure his re-election” will, once again, be shown to be as misguided as ever.

The challenge to Republicans will be to expose this over-the-top regulation as the unconstitutional power grab it is, stop it, and make sure Obama gets appropriately tarnished as the LEFTIST he is in the process. We are going to witness so much outrageous regulatory abuse that it will be a huge challenge for Congress to keep on top of it.  And, to the extent Congress cannot meet this challenge, be prepared for considerable loss of freedom and significant increases in taxes masquerading as higher costs.This is not a hard prediction to make, since it has already started.  In the couple of weeks, we have:

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Received this as an email. Made a lot of sense to me, so I’m passing it along.

Chris

Earlier this decade, Michael Barone wrote a book entitled “Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for America’s Future”. His premise was that we are becoming an America of Soft people demanding entitlements at other people’s expense, unwilling or unable to stand on our own and looking to the government instead of ourselves to provide our every need.

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Health Care Memorandum Opinion

Proposal defines demanding compliance as felony with penalty of 5 years, $5,000

Texans take their rights seriously.

A bill that has been prefiled for the 2011 state legislative session creates penalties of up to $5,000 in fines and up to five years in jail for anyone guilty of the “felony” of attempting “to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation” of Obamacare, the president’s plan that effectively nationalizes the health-care decision making process.

The plan by Texas Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, effectively would nullify the federal health care legislation in his state.

At least, that is what the bill that “relates to federal health care legislation” says:

The federal Act:

1. is invalid in this state;
2. is not recognized by this state;
3. is specifically rejected by this state; and
4. is null and void and of no effect in this state.
   …
   Full article – http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=235757

By Austin TEA Party Patriots

The Obama Administration is now acknowledging what we have warned about all along – the national healthcare takeover bill is a terrible job-killer. 

The Health and Human Resources arm of the White House has been very busy granting waivers to companies who have said, “Give me waivers or give me layoffs!”  Check out the websites below for a Fox News You Tube on the issue and a list of over 100 companies who have recently received waivers from the requirement of providing expanded healthcare coverage to their employees.
 
We’re still waiting on the Administration to admit that the national healthcare takeover is also an unconstitutional restriction on our liberties and one of the most, if not the most, ill-advised bills ever rammed down the throats of the American people.
 
Fox News Report:
 

U. S. Department of Health and Human Services list of companies who have received waiver of Obamacare requirements:

http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html

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Contributed by Hugh Goldberg

1. Americans spend $36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.
 
2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people, is the world’s largest private employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger and Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only fifteen years.

8. During this same period, 31 big supermarket chains sought bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had five years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at Wal-Mart stores. (Earth’s population is approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the guys who run Wal-Mart to fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the Legislature: It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

a. The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
 
b. Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.

c. Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
  
d. War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to “the poor” and they only want more.
  
e. Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
  
f. Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
   
g. The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.
 
  
You have FAILED in every”government service” you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars.
  
AND  YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ??
 
MAYBE WE OUGHT TO KICK OBAMA AND HIS EGG-HEAD BUDDY BUMS OUT OF OFFICE AND HIRE WAL MART TO RUN THE GOVERNMENT???
 
WAL MART SEEMS TO KNOW HOW TO RUN A BUSINESS. WHY DON’T YOU GUYS JUST ADMIT IT’S WAY BEYOND YOUR PAY GRADE, AND QUIT?

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I went to high school in the 70′s, and spent many a night at my friend’s apartment watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus on “late night” PBS. Many of their skits and movies are comedy classics – The Parrot Sketch, The Cheese Shop Sketch, Argument Clinic, many others. But one sketch in particular – The Hospital Sketch – has a rather prescient resonance that is both hilarious and haunting.

John Cleese and Graham Chapman are two witless doctors who are more concerned with impressing the Hospital Administrator (played by Eric Idle) by arranging expensive-looking equipment in the delivery room than they are in the welfare of their terrified pregnant patient. I’ve seen the sketch many times over the years, and it has never failed to evoke guffaws of laughter. But lately, it just doesn’t seem very funny.

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Statement by Brewer Obama Care

I know, I know.  It’s shameless self-promotion.  But Mark Levin is, well, the Great One.  He is a source of great inspiration to me, a truly Great American.  Unafraid, uncowed by the Alinsky-ites and the race-hustlers, Levin speaks truth in the face of Orwellian spin by a shamelessly biased politico-media complex.  Levin’s book Liberty and Tyranny is much more than a Conservative Mainfesto; it is a roadmap to victory over the statists that have insinuated themselves at all levels of our government and our culture.

The thought that Mark Levin actually read something I wrote, and encouraged others to read it, is deeply gratifying and humbling. 

The post at David Horowitz’s NewsRealBlog is here.

//Shameless self-promotion mode OFF

Hugh Hewitt interviewed Senate minority leader John Boehner a few days ago, and could not get Boehner to commit to a rapid legislative agenda to repeal and reverse the democrat’s leftist legislative cramdown after the midterms in November. Boehner hemmed and hawed, sounding every bit like the establishment inside-the-beltway career politicians that got us into the dire economic mess that we’re in now.

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