Tennessee Reaching Out On State Sovereignty

A letter from Tennessee to the other 49 State Legislatures:  They Can’t Push Us Around Forever

We send greetings from the Tennessee General Assembly.  On June 23, 2009, House Joint Resolution 108,  the State Sovereignty Resolution, was signed by Governor Phil Bredesen.  The Resolution created a committee which has as its charge to:

* Communicate the resolution to the legislatures of the several states,
* Assure them that this State continues in the same esteem of their friendship,
* Call for a joint working group between the states to enumerate the abuses of authority by the federal government, and
* Seek repeal of the assumption of powers and the imposed mandates.

It is for those purposes that this letter addresses your honorable body…

More at the link.

What Would the Federal Deficit Buy?

Value Added Tax Explained

Mike Rogers’ opening statement on Health Care reform in DC

The video is from July, but things haven’t changed in so-called health care reform.

Cap and Tax Bill Puts EPA In Charge of Building Codes

From the Cooler Heads Digest, a summary of climate change-related news:

The House-passed Waxman-Markey energy-rationing bill, H.R. 2454, sets specific federal housing standards $4,000 to $10,000 and price more than 1,000,000 people out of the market, according to Bill Killmer, a vice president of the National Association of Home Builders. In 2014 for new residential buildings and 2015 for new commercial buildings, a 50 percent increase in energy efficiency is required (relative to the baseline code), increasing each year thereafter. Waxman-Markey also adopts California’s portable lighting fixture standard as the national standard. And it mandates efficiency improvements for many new appliances, including spas, water dispensers, and dishwashers.

But the Senate’s Kerry-Boxer energy-rationing bill, S. 1733, goes much further; it gives an unelected federal official a regulatory blank check:

“The (EPA) Administrator, or such other agency head or heads as may be designated by the President, in consultation with the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, shall promulgate regulations establishing building code energy efficiency targets for the national average percentage improvement of buildings energy performance.” And, “The Administrator, or such other agency head or heads as may be designated by the President, shall promulgate regulations establishing national energy efficiency building codes for residential and commercial buildings.” Pp. 173-174

Federal building codes would be in the hands of the EPA.

Jack Webb Teaches Barack Obama a Lesson on Change

The Broken Common Bond

Is The President Ready To Cede US Sovereignty?

Asks Lord Christopher Monckton, the man the Democrats refused to allow to testify at a Congressional hearing last spring.  They did, however, find room for the Gorbaucle to spread his self-serving lies there.

An important excerpt from the speech:

Here is why the truth matters. It was all very well for jesting Pilate to ask that question and then not to tarry for an answer. But that question that he asked, “what is the truth?” is the question which underlies every question and in the end it is the only question that really matters. When you ask that question what you are really asking is “what is the truth about the matter?” And we are now going to see why it matters morally, socially, and politically, as well as economically and scientifically. That the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth should inform public policy on this question.

More at Michelle Malkin.

Fringe Media Protesters: Can You Hear Us Now?

Will the legacy media take their fingers out of their ears?  Protesters hit media outlets in 100 cities on Saturday, October 17, 2009, to call attention to media bias.  A report from Denver:

Reports on the event in Indianapolis here and here.

Video from Chicago:

A lot of links at HQ Operation: Can You Hear Us Now.  Awesome!

Thanks to Michelle Malkin

Free To Speak Again

From Fox News, Obama Administration Drops ‘Gag Order’ on Private Health Insurer

The federal government, in the face of allegations it was trampling on free speech, has closed its investigation of a major insurance company for allegedly trying to scare seniors with a mailer warning they could lose important benefits under President Obama’s health reform plan.

U.S. health officials announced Friday that private insurers can send seniors information on health-related issues as long as they allow their members to opt out of receiving the communications, apparently ending its probe of Humana.

“While we feel it is important to protect Medicare beneficiaries from potentially unwelcome marketing and other communications, we also recognize plans’ interest in contacting their enrollees on issues unrelated to the specific plan benefit that they contract with CMS to provide to those enrollees,” Teresea DeCaro, acting director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Drug and Health Plan Contract Administration Group, wrote in a memo…

More at the link.