Archive for October, 2009

By Dr. Paul L. Williams Monday, August 17, 2009

“In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service,”— Michelle Obama.

We were wrong.

Michelle Obama, as we reported on July 7, is not served by twenty-two attendants who stand by to cater to her every whim.

She is served by twenty-six attendants, including a hair dresser and make-up artist.

The annual cost to taxpayers for such unprecedented attention is approximately $1,750,000 without taking into account the expense of the lavish benefit packages afforded to every attendant.

Little did American voters realize the call for “change” would result in the establishment of an Obama oligarchy.

The discovery of the additional attendants was made by D’Angelo Gore of factcheck.org and by calls to Katie McCormick Lelyyeld, Michelle Obama’s press secretary.

Mr. Gore launched his investigation of the First Lady’s staff in the wake of an article that appeared on thelastcrusade.org and Canada Free Press on July 7.

The article, which became a chain letter viewed by millions of Americans, reported that Michelle Obama requires more than twenty attendants - - more than any First Lady in U.S. History. It provided the following list of White House staff members assigned to the First Lady:
$172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
$140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
$113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary)
$102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)
$102,000 - Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

Read more at http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/13827

By JIM VANDEHEI & MIKE ALLEN, 10/21/2009

President Obama is working systematically to marginalize the most powerful forces behind the Republican Party, setting loose top White House officials to undermine conservatives in the media, business and lobbying worlds.

With a series of private meetings and public taunts, the White House has targeted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest-spending pro-business lobbying group in the country; Rush Limbaugh, the country’s most-listened-to conservative commentator; and now, with a new volley of combative rhetoric in recent days, the insurance industry, Wall Street executives and Fox News.

Obama aides are using their powerful White House platform, combined with techniques honed in the 2008 campaign, to cast some of the most powerful adversaries as out of the mainstream and their criticism as unworthy of serious discussion.

More at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28532.html

A bitter divide over Countrywide mortgage scandal.

Democratic staff for the House oversight committee informed their GOP counterparts today that the majority has changed the locks on the committee’s hearing room. While Republicans previously enjoyed their own key to the room, they will now have to request access from Democrats. This followed a bitter partisan argument in which Republicans refused to take down a video from their website that contradicted Dem explanations about a closed-door meeting on the Countrywide VIP loan scandal.

As we reported last week, the committee was scheduled to meet on Thursday to mark up several minor pieces of legislation. Days before the meeting, California Republican Darrell Issa notified committee Chairman Edolphus Towns that Mr. Issa would call for a vote to subpoena Countrywide documents from Bank of America, which bought the failed subprime lender last year. Recall that, under the “Friends of Angelo” program, named for former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad received sweetheart deals on home mortgages. Mr. Issa wants to uncover the full story on Countrywide’s effort to influence Washington policy makers.

More at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704597704574485783622311444.html

Also see Oversight “Democrats Run Away From Countrywide Bribe Program Vote”, Oct. 16, 2009 at http://milwaukee.wisgop.info/2009/10/16/oversight-democrats-run-away-from-countrywide-bribe-program-vote

Democracy anyone? Transparency? We are losing our country . . . fast.

by Kellyanne Conway, Oct. 20, 2009

The Washington Post poll is the latest example of a “public poll” in the past 2–3 weeks that curiously shows a growing number of Americans supportive of the “public option.” AP and Gallup were others. This is agenda-driven polling.

The fact is: Asking an ignorant public about the “public option” is incomplete polling. It calls for a response to feel-good phraseology rather than a probing of underlying ideology. “Public option” in health care is not so different from “campaign-finance reform,” “Violence against Women’s Act,” “revenue enhancements,” and such.

Our side has not done enough to discredit and expose the positive-sounding “public option” for what it truly is: a government grab of one of the most intimate matters people face, and one about which most of them are presently content.

Additionally, “private” is the opposite of public, and privacy is an important word in the overall health-care lexicon. We should message this aspect of “public option” as well.

The bogusness of these polls is also proved by President Obama himself, who is lukewarm on the inclusion of the public option and has suggested they would move forward with or without it. He must realize that good polling shows no such clamor for a public option. The great news there, of course, is the fire he faces from the Left (unions, Congressional Black Caucus) on this if public option is excluded or severely diluted.

— Kellyanne Conway is president of a polling company, WomanTrend.

From http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjU4MGQzZmRmZDFiNGUxZTFjMDM3MDhmMGU0MTA0YmI=

By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Oct. 19, 2009 4:42 p.m.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin will visit Milwaukee next month for a speech at State Fair Park.

The former Republican vice presidential candidate will speak Nov. 6 at the Wisconsin Exposition Center in West Allis. Tickets cost $30 each and can be purchased online only at www.SarahPalinEvent.com. No tickets will be sold at the door.

The program is scheduled from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

Palin’s visit is sponsored by Wisconsin Right to Life and will feature Charlie Sykes of WTMJ-AM (620) as master of ceremonies. Palin was Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election.

From http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/64804787.html

by Christian Schneider, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI)

Each year, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute conducts a citizen survey that gauges the public’s feelings towards their elected officials. In December 2007, only 10% of the individuals polled said they thought state elected officials represent the interests of the voters. By contrast, 85% said elected officials take care of either “their own interests” or “special interests” first.

Perhaps it is this deep distrust in their state legislators that compels large majorities of Wisconsinites to favor placing term limits on their elected officials. According to the WPRI poll, 72% of respondents favored term limits, while only 22% opposed them. There was no demographic group in the state that did not strongly favor some sort of term limits on Wisconsin elected officials.

Read more at http://www.wpri.org/Reports/Volume22/Vol22No6/Vol22No6.html

An incumbent (of either party) has tremendous advantages. Gerrymandering districts doesn’t help either.

$1.4 Trillion Deficit Complicates Stimulus Plans
by Jackie Calmes, NY Times, October 16, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before and the largest shortfall relative to the size of the economy since 1945.

. . . The shortfall for the fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, translates to 10 percent of the economy, according to a joint statement from the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter R. Orszag. For the 2008 fiscal year, the deficit of $459 billion was 3.2 percent of the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.

Economists generally agree that annual deficits should not exceed 3 percent of the G.D.P., and that is the level President Obama had vowed to reach by the end of his first term in 2013.

Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17deficit.html

Psst: Don’t tell the Chines!!

Polanski, Letterman, and the Norwegians make conservatives’ day
by Noemie Emery, The Weekly Standard, 10/26/2009

Three times in the past several weeks, fortune has seemed to beam on conservatives, in unexpected and unprompted ways. Not that they’ve won much, but their tormentors keep losing. Three days in fall 2009 damaged or neutralized three liberal institutions, whose powers have now been curtailed.

Read more at
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/017/088ytjrb.asp

How Roman Polanski, David Letterman, and the Nobel Prize Committee look foolish. From the article: “Few now think that the “arts community” has any moral compass at all.” Well said.

by David Freddoso, Commentary Staff Writer, Washington Examiner, 10/15/2009

Faced with a promised vote to subpoena documents on Countrywide Financial’s “Friends of Angelo” program, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee fled a scheduled 2 p.m. markup today.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the Ranking Republican on the Oversight Committee, had promised to call for a vote at today’s markup on whether to subpoena documents involved in the program that gave sweetheart mortgages to at least four Democratic government officials, including two senators. According to the Wall Street Journal, the program might have also benefitted the chairman of House Oversight, Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y.

Even if it had been ruled out of Order, Issa’s motion would have received a vote.

The committee’s Democrats simply failed to appear. Republican staffers say they caught them on tape leaving by a back door at 2:35.

Read more at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Democrats-skip-out-on-Countrywide-vote-64434312.html

Memo to RNC: Can this be made into a commercial for 2010??

by Joseph Ashby, October 16, 2009

The plot thickens on the media’s character-lynching of Rush Limbaugh. Of the four stories run on ESPN.com about Limbaugh’s bid for the Rams (October 6, October 12, October 15, and another October 15) none of them mention that NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team.

The October 12 article references Smith’s anti-Limbaugh email meant to garner opposition against the radio host’s bid. The report refers to Smith only as the executive director of the NFLPA. Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention that Smith’s political connections (including those to whom he donated thousands of dollars) have a vested interest in Limbaugh’s discrediting.

Read more at http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/10/limbaugh_targeted_by_obama_off.html

Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207) now has 301 co-sponsors, and the numbers keep growing! HR 1207’s companion bill in the Senate, S 604, has already attracted 30 co-sponsors.

Read more at http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/audit-the-federal-reserve-hr-1207/

Our local Republican Congressmen Paul Ryan and Jim Sensebrenner are co-sponsors.

Saturday, October 17th
9:00am Germantown Village Hall, Council Chamber
N112W17001 Mequon Road, Germantown

1:00pm Shorewood Village Hall, Court Room (2nd floor)
3930 N Murray Ave, Shorewood
***Please enter from library parking lot.  There is an elevator to the 2nd floor

Saturday, October 24th
9:00am Hartford City Hall, Council Chambers
109 N Main St, Hartford
***Please enter from rear parking lot

1:00pm Glendale/North Shore Public Library
6800 N Port Washington Rd, Glendale

Sunday, October 25th
4:00pm Waukesha Town Hall
W250S3567 Center Rd, Town of Waukesha

Saturday, October 31st
9:00am Brown Deer Village Hall
4800 W Green Brook Dr, Brown Deer

1:00pm Elm Grove Village Hall
13600 Juneau Blvd, Elm Grove

Saturday, November 7th
9:00am Grafton Village Hall, Council Chamber (Lower level)
1971 Washington St, Grafton
***Please enter from rear parking lot

1:00pm Hartland Village Hall
Community Room (lower level)
210 Cottonwood Ave, Hartland
***Please enter from rear parking lot

Sunday, November 8th
4:00pm Whitefish Bay Village Hall, Court Room (2nd floor)
5300 N Marlborough Drive, Whitefish Bay

Saturday, November 14th
9:00am Pewaukee City Hall
W240 N3065 Pewaukee Rd, Pewaukee

1:00pm Menomonee Falls Village Hall, Council Chambers
W156 N8480 Pilgrim Road, Menomonee Falls

Sunday, November 15th
7:00pm Cedarburg Police Department
W75N444 Wauwatosa Rd, Cedarburg

From http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/Contact/

From Gateway Pundit:

Obama on his political opponents:
“They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”

Obama to his supporters:
“Get in Their Faces!”

Obama on ACORN mobs:
“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”

Obama to his mercenary army:
“Hit Back Twice As Hard”

Obama on the killer Iranian regime murdering their own people in the street:
“The Iranians are having a robust debate.”

Obama on defending genocide (2007):
The United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

Obama defending killing babies who survive an abortion:
“Essentially adding an additional doctor who then has to be called in an emergency situation to come in and make these assessments is really designed simply to burden the original decision.”

Truly, this is a man of peace.
From http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/top-quotes-from-this-years-nobel-peace.html

10/2/2009
Contact: Lonna Morouney
920-744-5921
lonna.morouney@davewestlake.org

(Watertown, WI)- Dave Westlake, candidate for U.S. Senate from Watertown, announced today his concern regarding the nomination of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler to the U.S. District Bench by Sens. Feingold and Kohl.

“I think many of us in Wisconsin are surprised to see that someone we voted off of our Supreme Court Bench has been nominated for a U.S. District Court position by Senators Feingold and Kohl” Westlake said. “If the voters said that they didn’t trust Justice Butler on our highest court, then it’s nothing short of disappointing that the two people who are supposed to represent Wisconsin voters once again thumbed their noses at us and appointed Justice Butler to a U.S. District Bench anyway.”

Butler, who was appointed by Governor Doyle to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2004 to fill the vacancy left by former Justice Diane Sykes, was defeated in his bid for election in April 2008 by now Justice Michael Gableman.

“Our Senators have nominated a man who failed to win the trust of Wisconsinites in a statewide election. It makes you wonder if perhaps they think they know what we want better than we do” Westlake queried. “It’s puzzling and a little insulting that the will of the Wisconsin voters was once again ignored in this decision. Frankly, I think that Wisconsin deserves better.”

From http://www.wispolitics.com/index.Iml?Article=172197

From “The Onion - America’s Finest News Source”

Obama To Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging Wildfire

Oct. 11, 2009, Editorial by the  Las Vegas Review-Journal

The details of health care legislation hardly matter anymore; it’s the vast expansion of federal bureaucratic control over medicine that counts to proponents.

Throughout the summer, the country was roiled in a curiously shifting debate. President Obama insisted something be passed quickly — before August, if possible. Democratic leaders made no bones about the fact they wanted something rammed through before a summer recess.

Forced to act quickly, defenders of the free market in medicine — or as much of a free market as remains — seized on a few obvious implications of the proposal, including the kind of financial triage that would cut costs by rationing expensive care to those near the end of life, characterized by the critics as “death panels.”

Proponents insisted there were no death panels in the legislation — at the same time they insisted they were removing that provision.

The odd thing about this whole debate about what was “in there,” is that there wasn’t any “there.” That is to say, there was no single definitive version of a Democratic health care reform bill that all parties could study, analyze and debate.

And it now appears there never will be — right up to the hour of a final vote.

Read more at http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/indecipherable-gibberish-63955267.html

This is so bad, we are running the entire column:

by Robert Knight, Townhall.com, Monday, October 12, 2009

Do you think Congress should vote on bills without reading them? How about voting on bills that don’t even exist yet, except in fragments?

The Senate Finance Committee is poised to vote on a massive health care reform bill on Tuesday allegedly authored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). A glaring, outrageous, unreported fact is that the bill’s actual text has been kept secret. No one actually knows what’s in it – not even the senators who will be told to vote for it.

Perhaps the Nobel committee will award President Obama another prize to share with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, for “imagination in medical financing.”

Bits and pieces are leaking out, but entire sections will be added later. That’s what happened with the House version. Nobody read the bill, and 75 “phantom” amendments were added after the vote. A similar maneuver happened in the Senate when a key committee approved another version of a sweeping health care bill in July without seeing the text. Actual language was unveiled months later in September.

In short, senators will follow recent precedent and be voting on something that does not even exist yet.

Even the Congressional Budget Office, which issued a report this week saying the Baucus plan would cost under $900 billion instead of more than a trillion, was operating without actual text. When the CBO crunched the detailed, 1,018-page House version this summer, it reported that it would cost far more than President Obama claimed. Obama then broke precedent and summoned the CBO director to the White House for a “talk.” Now the CBO says the Senate bill will cost less. They think. They hope. They speculate.

What’s more, CNSNews.com reports that an aide to Sen. Harry Reid said that current debates may be irrelevant because an entirely different version might be inserted into an unrelated House tax bill, HR 1586. That’s the measure that levies a 90 percent tax on bonuses given to executives of firms that receive bailout money. Among other things, this could be a way of getting around the constitutional requirement that all tax bills originate in the House.

Sen. Reid continues to insist that he wants a “public option” that would lead to a “single-payer” system, which means the end of private insurance and the dawn of socialized medicine. Just ask Barney Frank. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that she has the votes necessary to ram through a bill with “the public option” as soon as it comes back to her chamber.

“The real bill will be another 1,000-page, trillion dollar experiment… that vastly expands the role of the federal government in the personal health care decisions of every American,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer would not rule out the possibility that the House would vote for identical Senate language, thus avoiding having the bill go to conference for scrutiny and debate and getting it quickly to President Obama’s desk.

Stunned by the August town halls, Tea parties and the massive Sept. 12 taxpayer rally in Washington, liberals know the window is closing on their plan to nationalize one-sixth of America’s economy and put our health care decisions in the hands of government bureaucrats. So they are working in the dark to ram this through before most Americans find out.

Even with all the subterfuge, some details have slipped out:

–Do what we say, not what we do–Congress has exempted itself from mandatory coverage provisions that they want to impose on their fellow citizens.

–Taxing through higher deduction requirements— Dick Morris has been warning everyone that the seven-and-a-half percent trigger to deduct medical expenses on your federal tax return will be bumped to ten percent. That would shake billions out of people’s pockets who have had to spend significant money on health care, and will be an effective violation of the Obama campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000.

–Taxing Class II medical devices, such as breast pumps, pacemakers, ventilators, wheelchairs and needles. Call this the “mommy tax.”

–Different tax rates for people in different states. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel reports: “Majority Leader Harry Reid …worked out a deal by which the federal government will pay all of his home state’s additional Medicaid expenses for the next five years. Under the majority leader’s very special formula, only three other states – Oregon, Rhode Island and Michigan – qualify for this perk.” This means that Americans in other states would subsidize constituents of Harry Reid and some of his political friends. A dozen Democratic governors have come out against the Medicaid mandate as a budget buster, but Reid is covering his own political interests – with your money.

Are you angry yet?

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) took to the floor of the House during the earlier spendathon and said the nation is in the grip of “gangster government,” in which powerful interests are raiding the treasury to ensure their own continued power. The health care “reform” bill is more of the same, but even more dangerous. This is about the government’s power of life and death over our families, not just our wallets.

The liberal “mainstream” media are providing cover for all this. None is asking to see the health bill language. You have to go to places like the Media Research Center’s Newsbusters blog, where Brent Bozell exposed the Reid plan.

The Left will get away with all this unless Americans speak out now and let them know in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable and tyrannical. America needs to speak with a loud, single demand of our rulers in Washington:

“Show me the bill!”

From http://townhall.com/columnists/RobertKnight/2009/10/12/show_me_the_bill!?sort=desc&comments=true#comments

Folks, this is AWFUL. If you vote in favor of bill that HASN’T EVEN BEEN WRITTEN, THEN IT IS OUR OPINION THAT THAT IS AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE, FOR DERELICTION OF DUTY. What voter would do such a thing? And what REPRESENTATIVE of that voter dare do such a thing??

by Edwin Mora, Tuesday, May 12, 2009

(CNSNews.com) — The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job. Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit. The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as “female sex workers”–or FSW–and their handlers as “gatekeepers.” . . . Li said his study is being done in China rather than the U.S. because prostitution occurs with alcohol use in the United States like it does in China, Americans will be able to benefit from the project’s findings.

Read more at http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=47976

(The above is one of) 50 Examples of Government Waste

Read more examples at http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/08/50-examples-of-government-waste/

* * * * * * *

These are just a few examples of why we have a TRILLION dollar deficit (along with TARP etc.)

by MacIver Institute on October 9, 2009

Former Vice President Al Gore addressed the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday, October 9, 2009. A question and answer period followed the brief address. However, the former Vice President of the United States was not in the mood to answer any questions from skeptics of global warming. His appearance was highly scripted, and when one filmmaker dared ask a tough question…well, just watch this report.

From http://maciverinstitute.com/2009/10/daring-to-question-al-gore.html

By: J.P. Freire, Associate Commentary Editor, 10/09/2009

There’s a problem for President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize victory and it’s not his inexperience. From Article I, Section 9 of “that neglected curio,” the U.S. Constitution:

“No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

Per Wikipedia, the Nobel Prize is awarded as follows:

“…the Norwegian Nobel Committee consists of five members elected by the Norwegian Storting (the Norwegian parliament).[9] In its first stage, several thousand people are asked to nominate candidates. These names are scrutinized and discussed by experts in their specific disciplines until only the winners remain. This slow and thorough process is arguably what gives the prize its importance. Despite this, there have been questionable awards and questionable omissions over the prize’s century-long history.”

While the Norwegian Parliament has no say in who receives the prize, the role it plays in selecting the committee ties it to the state. Congress will have to vote on whether to allow Obama to accept the prize.

Read more at http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Can-a-sitting-president-receive-a-Nobel-Peace-Prize-63851812.html

Interesting question for the legal experts out there.