The above is the headline the Democrats will get to read if they vote against this. Way to go, Sen Coburn!
UPDATE: WELL GUESS WHAT - We can say it now - "Democrats Vote For Taxpayer-Funded Viagra To Child Molesters" - they voted down the Coburn Amendment.
No, this is not about Bill White's failure to report all his income.
Bill White last week fired off a bold claim that Perry was 'meddling' in Education with the State Board of Education and had taken Thomas Jefferson out of the history books, saying:
"Last week the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), led by Rick Perry's appointee, voted to remove Thomas Jefferson from social studies textbook standards."
"Apart from Thomas Jefferson, the only historical figure with more emphasis in the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills standards is George Washington."
Poor Reporting by News Media: Thomas Jefferson vs. Texas Social Studies Standards
by Gail Lowe, Chair of Texas State Board of Education
3.19.10
It did not take long for reverberations from the Texas State Board of Education's preliminary vote on Social Studies requirements to spread across the country.
And predictably, the media coverage was woefully inaccurate and blatantly distorted.
The New York Times probably was not the first to report on the board's deliberations, but it joined a host of prominent Texas news outlets that incorrectly claimed Thomas Jefferson had been dropped from the curriculum framework used in Texas public schools.
Apart from Thomas Jefferson, the only historical figure with more emphasis in the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills standards is George Washington.
The State Board of Education expects students at the elementary-grade level, in middle school and again in high school to study these Founding Fathers and to be well-versed in their contributions to American history and government.
Thomas Jefferson is included along with John Adams, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Nathan Hale, the Sons of Liberty and George Washington as Founding Fathers and patriot heroes that Texas fifth-graders should study for their notable contributions during the Revolutionary period.
During Grade 8, in which the history of the United States from the early colonial period through Reconstruction is presented, the Social Studies TEKS framework requires students to explain the roles played by the following significant individuals: Abigail Adams, John Adams, Wentworth Cheswell, Samuel Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, James Armistead, Benjamin Franklin, Bernardo de Galvez, Crispus Attucks, King George III, Haym Salomon, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Paine and George Washington.
The U.S. Government course required for high school graduation mandates that students "identify the contributions of the political philosophies of the Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, George Mason, Roger Sherman and James Wilson on the development of the U.S. government."
In addition, high school students must "identify significant individuals in the field of government and politics, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan."
To say the State Board of Education has excluded Thomas Jefferson from the curriculum framework is irresponsible and untruthful.
Jefferson not only penned the words of the Declaration of Independence, served as the third President of the United States and was father of the University of Virginia, but his promotion of the ideals of states' rights and a limited federal government have permeated our nation for centuries. No study of American history would be complete without his inclusion.
That is why Thomas Jefferson warrants such strong emphasis in the TEKS standards the State Board of Education has approved.
A critical skill Texas students should develop as part of their education is the ability to analyze information from primary source documents.
This should be a requirement for journalists, too. Many seem to have jumped to erroneous conclusions without even examining the actual curriculum standards.
One can disagree ideologically with the State Board of Education, but the TEKS standards themselves should be the point of reference for objective, thorough reporting.
________________________________
Gail Lowe (R-Lampasas) is chairman of the 15-member Texas State Board of Education.
“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.” -Sam Houston
We in Texas are not taking this ObamaCare assault on American freedom and common sense lying down.
For starters, our AG Greg Abbott is joining others in challenging the constitutionality of the Federal mandates that force people to buy a product against their will:
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has announced he will be participating in a lawsuit with several other states to use the courts in an effort to stop ObamaCare.
And well they should, for not only did the Democrats in Congress not read the bill, they didn’t read the Constitution:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”–Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Senator Hutchison has joined Sen DeMint in a call to Repeal Obamacare… Saying:
“In tough economic times, the last thing our nation needs is higher taxes, higher insurance premiums, and an unconstitutional power grab by the federal government.”
For mild-mannered Hutchison to say “unconstitutional power grab” - well, someone been drinking the Good Tea lately.
Brevity is the soul of wit, and here is the Repeal Bill in its beautiful and stunning simplicity:
To repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. REPEAL.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the amendments made by that Act, are repealed.
State Representative Ken Paxton has given his answer:
Following the passage of H.R. 3590, “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” by the U.S. House of Representatives, I am drafting legislation to reject this overreaching bill due to its impact and costs to our State and to Texas taxpayers. I will file this legislation at the first opportunity for consideration next legislative session, which will begin in January 2011. We must be ready to reject federal takeover of our healthcare system.
The legislation I am currently drafting will be titled, “The Texas Health Freedom Act.” This Act will declare that the public policy of the State of Texas is to exercise sovereign power providing for the rights of Texas residents to choose their own health insurance plan freely without imposition or threat of penalties from the federal or state government. Additionally, this Act gives the Attorney General the express duty to protect the rights and property of the residents of Texans with respect to federal mandates. This bill is modeled after the constitutional amendment that passed in Arizona (HCR 2014) in 2009 and the bill that was signed into law in Idaho (HR 391) on March 17, 2010.
….
If anyone thinks the passage of the ObamaCare bill means it is over, they haven’t counted on Texas. Paxton’s bill asserts common sense and defends our healthcare freedom.
The leaders of Texas will be fighting this terrible Government takeover with every tool at their disposal. They will use lawsuits, state law, state administrative action, 10th amendment assertions. They will succeed if the people join them and support this approach and give Republicans a chance to overturn and repeal this through majorities in the Congress and the Statehouse. In short, these will succeed only if we win in November. This includes all the Statehouses across the nation, not just the Congress. (So get to know your State Rep candidate!) Our enemy, more than anything, is the apathy and defeatism that leads to inaction.
Now is the time, more than ever, with an election where the stakes could not be higher and where our freedom and our future is on the line, to stand up and ACT on your beliefs. Help the campaign(s) of your choice, give Republicans the spine to support REPEAL. Don’t Give Up. Be of firm resolve and have confidence that by being right, and doing right, we will prevail. Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, and we are not about to start now.
Today, we saw the last gasp and high-water mark of 20th Century Social Welfare Liberalism.
This radical, partisan bill barely scraped by with a 219 vote for, 212 against.
This vote today is a victory for vote-counting Democrats in only the most tactical sense, but a defeat on so many levels for so many Americans.
For the taxpayers, this huge tax hike is a defeat. For the elderly, a defeat for their care. For the healthy and for the self-employed, a defeat for their healthcare choices and freedom, as they are all now conscripted into force health insurance mandates. For the system, a defeat for common-sense and market-driven efficiency, as we now have Government more involved than ever. For the American people as a whole, it a defeat for democracy, as the will of the people was clearly not listened to.
And for the Democrats themselves, it is a defeat for them, or at best a Pyrric Victory. Many Congressmen who voted for this, will deservedly be defeated in November. The Democrats will be dealt a crushing blow in November. Millions of Americans will heed the call - Remember in November! Repeal! Kill the Bill!
Tomorrow is perhaps the end of the American experiment as it was for 250 years. Or it might be the start of something different: Operation Restore American Freedom begins tomorrow.
This day forward, the Government takeover of healthcare has now made healthcare the central issue politically at the national and state level. It has bankrupted in one fell swoop EVERY ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM and the Federal budget itself.
Newbusters says: "Krauthammer announced upon passage of health care reform legislation in the House of Representatives, we will have a different country and on the road to nationalized health care."
RedState blogger Erick Erickson says 'repeal': "1. Pledge immediate repeal in toto of Obamacare should it pass. No nibbling at the edges — the whole thing and we pledge our lives, fortunes, and honor to crushing any member of Republican leadership who refuses to get on the full repeal bandwagon."
Special Deals-for-Votes made for Obamacare
Here are some of the special deals made to get Demonsheep-ocrat Reps sold out to sign up for the $2.5 trillion Obamacare plan.
Washington -- In the end, the health 
His firm hold-out for stronger language banning the use of federal funds for abortions has turned the Democrat's race for 216 votes in the House -- the magic number needed to pass the $940 billion legislation -- into a last-minute, nail-biting struggle for majority leaders...read more
Sunday, March 21st 2010, 12:31 PM
Confident Democrats declared themselves on the verge of making history Sunday as they headed into the momentous and long-awaited vote to overhaul the nation's health care system.
But Republicans - and even some Democrats - questioned whether the House leaders had really managed to round up the 216 votes needed to pass the sweeping legislation....read more (participate in a one question online poll)
Richard SikorskiThe incumbent Democrat State Rep in HD 51 has gone and got himself arrested for DWI.
The Statesman reported on it via the State Rep's own press release, so don't expect to see "DWI Eddie" as his new media label. Rep. Rodriguez is a Democrat and thus "innocent until proven guilty". If he were a Republican, the rules would be reversed and he would likely be considered by the Press to be guilty until proven innocent.
The vote count is close as the bill comes down to the wire. The liberal blog FireDogLake has 209 NO votes as of Saturday night, recent no votes added are Jim Matheson of Utah, Ohio’s Zack Space, Glenn Nye, Jason Altmire, and Lorreta Sanchez. This doesn't count the "Stupak bloc" of 10 votes, leading to the conclusion that the bill will fail without the Stupak bloc.... but since they did NOT buy off Stupak, then the inevitable conclusion is ... the Bill Will Fail.
Can it be real? They actually don't squeeze enough Democrats to get this elephantine pile 'o socialistic tax-and-spend road apples passed? Obama may see a repeat of his Copenhagen performance - putting his cred on the line and his chip on the table and seeing himself get bupkis.
If it succeeds, it won't be the end, nor a capstone. It will be a Democratic millstone in November. And beyond, this bill will be the CENTRAL political issue for years, a political black hole that will suck all matter around it into its vortex. The taxes, spending and bureaucracy are all so huge, there is nothing this bill won't touch. It so corrodes the Federal structure of Government that it will set off a firestorm of reaction across many states, inciting nullifications and repeals and stat-level 'opt-out' pleas and challenges. it will drain the Federal treasury, making a balanced budget impossible and real tax reform a dream.
More Obamacare predictions:
1. The bill will cost more than advertised.
2. Insurance premiums will keep rising.
3. The quality of care will be worse.
4. The Left will keep pushing for more.
5. Republicans won’t really try to repeal it. .. once an entitlement is in place, it becomes virtually impossible to take away.
That last one is a sad prediction. If the bill has all the bad effects noted in 1-4, it may well be repealed in 2013, before all the huge entitlement expansions kick in for good.
But we shall see. The best way to stop all the bad effects of Obamacare is to not pass it in the first place.
Critics have insisted that the Obama-Pelosi healthcare bill in Congress is not about healthcare. This latest news shows the bill is a HUGE expansion of the IRS:
* IRS agents verify if you have “acceptable” health care coverage;
* IRS has the authority to fine you up to $2,250 or 2 percent of your income (whichever is greater) for failure to prove that you have purchased “minimum essential coverage;”
* IRS can confiscate your tax refund;
* IRS audits are likely to increase;
* IRS will need up to $10 billion to administer the new health care program this decade;
* IRS may need to hire as many as 16,500 additional auditors, agents and other employees to investigate and collect billions in new taxes from Americans; and
* Nearly half of all these new individual mandate taxes will be paid by Americans earning less than 300 percent of poverty ($66,150 for a family of four.)
Democrat whip James Clyburn announces the majority is “giddy” over the $940 billion price tag
Houston light rail has been a disaster.
This is a recipe for disaster and Austin is sowing the exact same seeds of fiscally reckless pipe-dream driven light-rail dreams.
Good luck, Cap Metro... and hide your wallets, taxpayers - light rail is going to skin us for a lot of money.
Record-breaker: Obama runs up $2 trillion in debt in 421 days ...
The 2009 congress had a bigger deficit (1.41 trillion) than the 1994-2006 congresses combined (1.25 trillion). One year of Democrats' deficits was larger than the entire 12 years the Republicans were the majority.
but who's counting these days?
Holly Hansen on SmartGirlPolitics says Gordon Thinks the Texas Ethics Commission is a Joke : "The Sun reported that John Gordon, candidate for the Texas House of Representatives, District 52, intentionally violated the laws for campaign reporting and has refused to pay the associated fines handed down by the Texas Ethics Commission."
It's hard to find a more arrogant and politically destructive act than snubbing your nose at campaign filing requirements. This guy has just poured gasoline on himself and lit a match ... and that's above and beyond his lawsuits against political opponents and other bizarre acts of belligerence. He's unelectable and deservedly so ...
Which means that since he is in a runoff against the much stronger Republican Larry Gonzales, in a race to take on a liberal Democrat incumbent in this Williamson district ... Go Larry, Go!
He cut $170 million in funding for abstinence programs this year that works: "classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity, researchers reported Monday in a landmark study."
Saw on a message board at The Hill:
In 1946 - Dems were hammered for focusing on National HC when prices spiked and wages were stagnant. 1994 - dems were hammered again for Universal HC when jobs slumped. 2010 - the dems are going to be hammered again for wasting 14 months on something no one says is a top priority. We Americans are going to take the nation back in 2010, and moreso in 2012. How many times do these stupid democrats need to be taught this lesson? How many dems are going to fall on their sword, only to see it repealed? Wow, that's quite the legacy you'll have, huh? Wasting 14 months when the nation has said from day 1 that jobs was the top priority. Nice going idiots. You deserve everything that happens to you, democrats.
who have you left, other than the brass-knuckle Congressional Whips. The Seattle Times:
This is a change of position for us. This page supported Barack Obama for president, enthusiastically. We have supported the health-care effort until now. We still support universal coverage as a social goal.
But the longer the fight goes on, the more it feels that the timing is all wrong. The economy is wounded. Employers are hurting. The time to think about loading employers with new burdens is when they are strong. Not now ...
President Obama has promised that any health-care bill he signs will not add one dime to the deficit, which already has swelled beyond anything since World War II. The president has put himself in a position where he cannot keep that promise. He has let each house of Congress come up with its own health-care bills.
The result has been chaos: The public option is in then out; the Medicare buy-in for 55-year-olds is in, then out. When the congressional dance stops, the Senate may have 60 votes, but for what? It will satisfy neither Obama’s frugal promise nor progressives’ lavish hopes.
CATO: Spending On Public Education 44% Higher Than Reported.
Video and written report shows that actual per pupil spending in many school districts is much higher than reported. For Houston:
the average real per-pupil spending figure of over $12,200 is 49 percent higher than the $8,200 the districts claim to spend. Real public school spending is 30 percent higher than the estimated median private school spending average of $9,400 (Figure 6)
Thousands of non-citizens getting in-state Texas tuition:
More than 12,000 illegal immigrants, non-permanent residents or non-U.S. citizens paid in-state tuition or received other such financial aid at public colleges and universities across Texas during late 2009, the Dallas Morning News reported today.
The figures from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board show about 1 percent of all Texas college students, in the fall semester, benefited from a 2001 law granting such in-state tuition.
The law says students who are not U.S. citizens and want to seek the assistance must have attended school in the state for at least three years before they graduate from a Texas high school. Students also must file an affidavit saying they plan to seek permanent residency.
During the fall semester, 12,138 students benefited from the law. Texas awarded about $33.6 million in state and institutional financial aid to those students between fall 2004 and summer 2008, according to the newspaper.
A roundup of news and views on healthcare:
Democrats will subvert the Constitution in their attempt to avoid political accountability for their vote - "It would be 100 times worse than Watergate."
Stop Pelosi's Slaughter House. The Democrats don't have the votes yet, and links to undecided Democrats are there.
Obama's illusions of cost control debunks many of the phony talking points used to justify the bill.
It won't reduce emergency room use, it won't cut mortality rates, it won't cut costs:
He's telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama's plan evades health care's major problems and would worsen the budget outlook.
Popping the higher education bubble speaks of the positive trends that are happening that could lower higher education costs: Credit-by-exam; open education resources; use of online courses and materials; etc. What can policymakers do to accelerate this change?
For example, state colleges and universities should be required to place instructional content and course information online for free, and to offer their registered students the opportunity to take courses online, for credit, at reduced cost. They should also expand credit-by-exam options.In Texas, we have a significant amount of coursework based around the 'core' - basic academic courses for a core-based distribution requirements. All such courses could or should be made available as 'credit-by-exam' courses in community colleges.
In a blow to merit-based admissions at UT, Obama Administration Files Brief Supporting Racial Preferences in University Admissions:
On Friday, the Obama administration filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, supporting the use of racial preferences by the University of Texas in its undergraduate admissions. The brief is a full-throated endorsement of such discrimination, and it goes out of its way to say that the administration will support it at the K-12 level, too, as well as throughout university admissions: “In view of the importance of diversity in educational institutions, the United States, through the Departments of Education and Justice, supports the efforts of school systems and post-secondary educational institutions that wish to develop admissions policies that endeavor to achieve the educational benefits of diversity in accordance with [the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision upholding the use of preferences by the University of Michigan law school].”
The Democrats have done so many things that kill American jobs one would almost think it was deliberate and not merely stupid. Here's another one:
Stimulating Green Jobs for China: "nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Investment Act has been spent on wind power ... nearly 80% has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines."
This doesn't even consider the job-killing downside of wind energy subsidies.
Saw on a message board.
"VOTE DEMOCRAT, IT'S EASIER THAN WORKING"
Trying to pass a bill without actually following the proper process can be so danged hard:
But Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota and chairman of the Budget Committee, said the reconciliation instructions in last year’s budget resolution seemed to require that Mr. Obama sign the Senate bill into law before it could be changed.
Via Ed Driscoll, saying California Tumbles into the Sea, a quantitative California versus Texas comparison. Other than that "ceded by Mexico" gaffe ("Remember the Alamo!"), a nice comparison.
Via Redstate, article on Obama applying pressure on Congress to pass ObamaCare:
“They can break my arms. They can do whatever they want to. They’ll never get my vote — ever. They’ll have to walk across my dead body if they want my vote on this issue.”
“there is no chance I am voting for this bill because it raises taxes on businesses, creates job-killing mandates, grows the size of government, and cuts services to seniors.”
Pitt’s false implications
Recent Letters to the Editor extolled Leonard Pitts. I admit he does write well. He also cleverly interprets facts by false implications.
In his column ((2/17/10), Pitts accuses Sarah Palin of “shameless hypocrisy” in that she described the president as “a charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” Pitts asserts that she meant that teleprompter use was “the mark of an insubstantial” person while using one herself. That is absurd. Her obvious point was that anyone can read off sentences and appear knowledgeable.
Without a teleprompter, the president makes serious errors. During the campaign he blundered into “spreading our wealth around,” a socialist idea. Then he planned to campaign in “57 states!” Still, even reading a teleprompter can be embarrassing as when Obama pronounced corpsman as “corpse-man.”
However, when Palin spoke to the National Republican Convention, her teleprompter malfunctioned but she continued without a hitch. Pitts is barking up a wrong tree!
Carl Schlaepfer
Democrat Congressman Eric Massa, who decided to resign for 'health reasons', then was found to be a subject of sexual harrassment complaint by a male staffer ... now says he was "railroaded":
Massa said he had not been informed of the sexual harassment allegations before they became public. He claimed that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., spoke falsely when he said he had brought the matter to him previously, Massa said. ...
Massa, who voted against health care reform in November, accused Democratic leaders of driving him out of office in the cause of passing health care reform ... "this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots."
See the County's update posted here for the March 2 primary.
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