This holiday season, as President Reagan pointed out, one thing I am thankful for is our freedom and liberty that we enjoy in the USA. We have our troops to thank for that. This holiday season, consider supporting our troops through the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s program ReMIND.
Walmart also has a way you can show your support for our troops. Enter your show of support here on Facebook. Here’s my favorite commercial of the holiday season brought to us by Walmart.
(Cross posted at LeeHernly.com)
The Washington Post reported on a provision in the health reform bill that would give the state of Louisiana - whose Senator, Mary Landrieu, is indecisive on health reform - $300 million.
“The promise of the Obama campaign is to change the way Washington works,” CNN’s John King asks Sen. Sherrod Brown. King argues that this process is “Washington as usual, is it not?”
Brown and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen were tongue-tied as to how to answer the question at first.
King continued, “Is it important enough to buy votes?”
That question seemed to help to get Senator Brown and Senator Shaheen going.
(H/T Breitbart TV)
(Cross posted @ The Alexandria Patriot)
If you’re like me, you’ll be watching a bit of football on Thanksgiving. If you do, you’ll probably see quite a bit of this PSA from the NFL and President Obama (nice throw Drew Brees!) on volunteerism and exercise.
‘The One’ can’t even let us have Thanksgiving without us seeing him on TV. What a narcissist. I wonder if SEIU’s Andy Stern gave his approval for using the kids in the video.
For those that have laughed off the ‘death panel’ (which was actually instituted under the Stimulus bill), health care rationing is here thanks to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
The task force 6 months ago continued its recommendations that women have mammograms every one to two years starting at age 40. The panel, which changes with every administration, now says that the screening shouldn’t start until age 50 and that a woman at this age only needs a screening once every two years. These recommendations are based on data collected since its last advisory in 2002.
What’s changed? We are getting closer and closer to state-run health care.
If ObamaCare is passed, the government will be paying for a lot more of these exams. That will put a serious strain on resources and health care dollars. The motivation here for the task force and HHS clearly is to cut costs, not to save lives.
According to that data, routine mammograms for women age 39 to 49 reduce cancer deaths by 15 percent, a figure the task force considers “modest.” Put another way, for every 1,900 women in their 40s who undergo a mammogram, one life will be saved. For women in their 50s that figure jumps to one life saved for every 1,300 screened, and for women in their 60s the figure is one in 377.
So clearly the numbers point to screenings being increasingly significant with age. The task force insists that for 40-somethings the risks of false positives outweigh the benefits. While those “risks” consist largely of anxiety, the benefits of finding that one woman in 1,900 - a young woman, let’s not forget, possibly the mother still of young children - whose life might be saved are very real indeed.
Over on MSNBC, Dr. Nancy Snyderman tried to explain it this way:
“But, you ration what food you eat. You ration how much sleep you get. And this is saying we should question about how we spend our health care dollars.”
Are we really prepared to write off the lives of tens of thousands of women in their prime for whom early detection really is a life-saver?
When I see stories like this, it reminds me how thankful we Virginians should be that we live in a right to work state.
A Boy Scout in pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge toiled for 200+ hours trying to improve a local park. Doesn’t he know that’s a union job?
In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.
Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city’s largest municipal union.
Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.
“We’ll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails,” Balzano told the council.
Balzano said Saturday he isn’t targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city’s decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said “there’s to be no volunteers.” No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.
We can’t have concerned citizens doing their part to improve their community now can we?
In advance of Saturday’s Senate health care vote, I thought it best to refresh our memories about what is contained in the Constitution. A friend of mine sent this primer on our Constitutional Republic form of government and why America is not a democracy. It’s a fantastic piece.
Terry Jeffrey of CNSNews.com has been doing a fantastic job recently of quizzing our nations leaders on just where in the Consitution does it allow for the U.S. Government to require as federal law a mandate that individuals MUST have health insurance.
You won’t find ANYONE in the Main (some would say Lame) Stream Media doing this.
Terry has quizzed folks like Senator Burris, Senator Akaka, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Nelson, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, and more. Now, he has turned his attention to our carpet-bagger U.S. Senator Mark Warner from Virginia.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) tells Terry that Congress’ constitutional authority to require individuals to buy health insurance is like Medicaid, Medicare and states requiring driver’s licenses.
Medicare and medicaid were created in the mid-60’s after the liberals gained a super-majority in Congress after JFK’s shooting. Just like a majority of folks don’t want the current legislation that is before Congress, folks didn’t want Medicare or Medicaid. Programs like Medicaid, that Congress has forced upon the states, are not only un-Constitutional, they are breaking the states financially. Drivers Licenses are NOT mandated by the Constitution. They are individual mandates by the states.
Senator Warner also talks about free loaders in the system who get treated in an E.R. But, isn’t taxing the rest of us to provide insurance for those same folks much the same thing??
Shouldn’t an elected official like Senator Warner, who swore an oath to the Constitution and whose only job is to craft laws that comply with the Constitution, have a pretty good clue where the constitutional authority for a particular bill comes from? People who serve in our government have no higher duty than to ensure that everything they do conforms to the U.S. Constitution since there is no higher law in our land.
Congressmen and women are not allowed to just make stuff up as we go. Congress is NOT allowed to just do whatever notion strikes them or whatever whim catches their attention, not if we claim to still give a darn about our own Constitution, not if we want to remain a free people.
The founders set up a limited government because they knew first hand the dangers and threats to liberty presented by a government with too much power.
What could be more dangerous to freedom, what could be more at odds with our limited Constitutional government, than a system that asserts the right to make health care–life and death–decisions about the very life of each and every American?
Many jurisdictions in the Northern Virginia area, specifically those in which the big Government liberals are totally in charge (Arlington County) or where the big Government liberals have a majority of the seats (Alexandria, VA), are facing serious budget shortfalls. This is because they refuse to cut spending.
Now, Vice Mayor Kerry Donley of Alexandria, VA wants to double the gas tax in Northern Virginia. The gas tax is now typically $.17 a gallon. The proposed legislation (file can be found here - PDF file), thanks to the Vice Mayor, would double that amount. The impetus behind this is that each 1 percent brings in about $1.2 million annually for the City of Alexandria.
The legislation states (emphasis mine) (from item 9 on page 5 under the heading ‘Legislation to Introduce’):
Increasing the Northern Virginia Sales Tax on Motor Fuels (Vice Mayor Donley). The City of Alexandria requests legislation to increase the regional sales tax on motor fuels. Vice Mayor Donley has proposed increasing the sales tax on motor fuels in Northem Virginia by up to 2 percent (it is now 2.1 per cent, levied on the distributor). Although revenues from this tax are somewhat volatile, since they fluctuate with the price of gasoline, each one percent increase would likely result in about $1.2M annually for the City, and over $15M for the Northern Virginia WMATA localities. Legislation to increase this tax should specify that revenues from it will not be used to supplant existing revenue sources (e.g., state match for dedicated federal Metro funding).
Translated: Instead of cutting spending by replacing this revenue stream with the state’s dedicated federal Metro funding, this would be an additional stream of revenue for the City.
It also appears that Vice Mayor Donley hates tourists. The Vice Mayor wrote to Bernie Caton, the City’s legislative director:
“Travelers and visitors to the region should pay more of the burden as they are the direct beneficiaries of the reduced congestion brought to us by the Metro system,”
In a deep recession, it should behoove City Council and the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Bureau to try and keep the costs to tourists low so that the tourists will keep coming back. They should not be advocating for increasing the cost to the tourist.
The folks in Alexandria and in the surrounding jurisdictions in Northern Virginia pay between $.30 to $.50 higher than the rest of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Raising the gas tax, especially in a recession that is expected to get worse, will not solve the problem.
Reducing spending, making transportation and mass transit more customer friendly will go a lot farther than local Government stealing more of our money and our freedom by increasing taxes.
As a life long resident of Alexandria, Virginia, I can say that I have NEVER been more ashamed of my City than I am this week.
With a double digit commercial vacancy rate, the City is in no position to be over regulating businesses. We residents have seen the destruction the City Council has imposed on Landmark Mall in Alexandria. The City has been looking to try and redesign that mall into a high density/mixed use area for years. For this reason, many of the big box stores and major retailers have left the mall.
Does the City of Alexandria know how to create a high density/mixed use neighborhood? Yes. One look at the neighborhood of Carlyle in Alexandria, will tell you how badly the City of Alexandria screwed that up. The City designed the area with the idea that many of the residents/visitors to the neighborhood would use Metro. Sadly, this has not happened. The Carlyle neighborhood has a HUGE parking problem which the City is still trying to figure out a solution for because not many people are taking Metro.
Now, the liberals in Alexandria are after the adult entertainment stores that have opened on King Street in Alexandria, eight (8) blocks away from each other. La Tache opened approximately one (1) year ago on lower King Street ans Lotus Blooms opened earlier this year at 1017 King St in Alexandria.
I am no fan of either store. However, as a Conservative, I am a fan of individual freedom and property rights. I, as a citizen, reserve the right to enter or not enter the store as I see fit. Le Tache replaced a firearms store that was there for years. A lot of people are against guns, where was the outrage against that? Across the street from Le Tache is a store that sells tobacco products. Many people are against smoking so where is the outrage against that store? Le Tache opened because the City of Alexandria lied to the buildings owner. So, to get back at the City, the owner leased out the space to Le Tache. See a pattern?
As the Alexandria Times pointed out in January:
At its base Le Tache is a business. City officials have stressed the importance of small businesses, hailing them as the backbone of Alexandria’s economy. The shop went through the city’s vetting process for a new business and passed. Like it or not, the city determined that it is a legitimate, tax-paying small business.
Likewise, the owners of Lotus Blooms, went through the City’s vetting process, applied for and received a business license. Now, the City is out to punish this business. The proposed regulation says that no two adult businesses can be within 1,000 feet of one another, or within the historic districts, where both are.
According to the proposed regulation, Le Tache would be grandfathered in because it will have been in the City for more than a year by the time the regulation takes effect. Lotus Blooms would be required to close after 18 months, which the amendment calls “a reasonable period within which to recoup its limited investment in the retail space.”
There was a previous store on King Street called ‘Romance for the Senses’ that sold many of the same products that these stores sell. No one became outraged over that store. What happened? The market played out and after several months the store closed.
With the business climate as bad as it is in Alexandria, it is much more prudent for City Council to let the market play out and see if the current economic climate in Alexandria will sustain these two stores rather than punish them.
See a report about this controversy on News Channel 8.
