Wal-Mart Defended on Lew Rockwell

The premier libertarian site does not think much of the class-action sex discrimination lawsuit against the retailer.

Patriots on Watch: "Mean Girls" in The Legislature

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Mark Moore, former Spokesman for Ron Paul's presidential campaign in Arkansas, and Frank Gilbert, the former Mayor of Tull, Arkansas, discuss the issues of the day. Includes "Mean Girls" culture in the state legislature; Joe Biden talks impeachment; Conspiracy theory on redistricting, and more.

"Mean Girls" Culture in State Legislature Needs to Be Changed

Mean Girls.

I think there is a "mean girls" culture in the state legislature. This culture does not serve truth and right well, either in your local Junior High School or at our state capitol. Let me explain.

There are two ways to be uncivil, openly or sneakily. When men disagree they may be blunt. They may be frank. But they tend to get the issue out there on the table. The sneaky way to be uncivil is to go behind each others backs and set stuff up. The manful way to be uncivil is to be so direct that feelings are not respected. The sneaky way to be uncivil is to lie, mislead and plot.

What we have down there in the state legislature is a culture which puts great emphasis on being openly civil, but encourages sneaky uncivil behavior. And since openly calling people on sneaky uncivil behavior is frowned on, the only way you can deter someone who is uncivil in a sneaky manner is to be that way yourself. The most forthright persons lose in such a situation.

I was down there last week trying to get a bill passed to help autistic children by more efficiently spending existing school money. The bureaucrats did not want to lose effective control of the money. The Democrat chair of the committee did not want them to lose it either.

Our bill was first on the agenda. Despite this, the chair started calling for other bills to be heard. At first, we went along, but after a while it got ridiculous. We were there for two hours and bills not even on the written agenda were getting heard first. Our sponsor complained. The chair said that our sponsor should have shown up at another meeting to put her bill on a list of bills that would be moved to the front of the line. The trouble was, she didn't know about that meeting. It was conjured up by the good ole boys to find a way to get their bills through.

This was a bigger deal than just waiting a couple of hours longer to get our bills passed. The Democrats have decided that the session will end on April Fools Day (I know). This means that many bills that have been filed will not have a chance to get a fair hearing before the session ends. The Democrats are pulling tricks like the one I related above to make sure their bills and the ones that the Governor wants get every opportunity to pass. Bills from the other side, or bills that the Governor doesn't like? Well, there just isn't time for them because for some reason the session must end April 1st instead of a week later.

In the case of the bill I was pulling for, HB 1458 by Rep. Debbie Hobbs of Rogers, the delay through the day was critical. Each time the committee took a break and met later, the committee would lose a member or two who would go home or be called away to another committee. The chair did offer us a slot right before they had to break to go vote on the house floor, but that would have given us about ten minutes to present the bill- an insanely short amount of time considering we had a lot of misinformation to fight.

By the time we got a real chance, it was three in the afternoon. We presented an overwhelming case for the measure. The state bureaucrats who had spread all kinds of misinformation about the measure looked really bad, and they knew it. A look around the room would show that the bill was going to get a "do pass" recommendation from the committee. That is almost always enough for it to get through the full House at least.

At that point, two of the Democrats in the room got out of their chairs and walked out of our presentation. It was a tactical move because if there was a vote at this point they would have lost it. This put the committee attendance below the minimum level for a binding vote. Instead of staying in the room, and letting the process work, the two democrats kept us from getting the vote done. If we have the time and money for another 8 hour round trip on a work day, we can try again Tuesday, but it may be too late to get it though on the Senate side.

I believe that sneaky incivility should be met with open incivility. When Chairmen cite secret meetings as reasons why they don't follow their own agenda, they should be treated rudely right out in the open. When legislators try to circumvent the process by walking out to prevent a vote from being taken, they should be called on it. When state bureaucrats brazenly put out misinformation to the legislators in an effort to scare them out of voting for a bill, they should be called on it.

I am not for incivility, but we have incivility down there now. It's just sneaky "mean girls" incivility. Manful frankness bordering on incivility as a response may be the best cure for it.

Planned Attack to Pre-Silence Key Voice in Redistricting?

There are several moving parts in this one, so close attention is required. One: The Democrats are shockingly partisan in their redistricting plans. The Fayetteville Finger is evidence enough of that. Two: The Democrats and their accomplices in the establishment media have been launching an unrelenting series of attacks against Secretary of State Mark Martin. Three: Secretary of State is one of the three positions on the board for redistricting within the state. The other two players are Governor Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel.

I have wondered about the intensity, frequency, and timing of the attacks on Martin. Finally, with the revelation of the Fayetteville Finger plan it is all starting to come together for me. The Democrats intended a highly partisan redistricting process. The natural voice in the state to oppose such a move is Martin. He's one of two Republican state-wide office holders in our state government. He's also the only Republican among the three at the top of the redistricting process.

The solution was to throw a ton of mud at him right as the redistricting process begins. It does not have to be true, and it doesn't have to stick long. They just need to keep him on the defensive and undermine his moral credibility long enough to ram through a one-sided redistricting plan.

I spoke with Martin and learned some very interesting facts about the things they are pinging him on. For example, they attacked him for buying a new vehicle at a time when state government has taken fire for owning too many. But Martin says that his predecessor got rid of four or five vehicles just as he was walking out the door, leaving Martin in a position where he needed a good one for things like redistricting. To this day Martin has less vehicles than his predecessor (23 vs. 28). All four of Charlie Daniel's deputies had vehicles from the state. None of Martins' do. Yet Martin gets pounded the instant he buys a vehicle and the media ignores these critical details. That whole attack seems like a set up, what with the exiting Democrat putting him in a position where he needed a vehicle and then jumping him the instant he got one.

The same could be said of his hiring a redistricting coordinator. His predecessor left him a budget for it. Last time, it was the Secretary of State's call. So he did it. Then Gov. Beebe and Attorney General McDaniel attack him for acting without their permission. Then they decided to hire their own man. The papers make out like Martin acted out of turn. Apparently, when there is a Republican Governor and a Democrat Secretary of State, the Sec. of State is supposed to hire the redistricting coordinator. When there is a Democrat Governor and a Republican Secretary of State, the Gov. and the Attorney General are supposed to do it. For that matter, all of his expenditures have to be cleared through DF&A, so if they were restricted items, why did DF&A approve them?

Fact is, the people of this state could use a voice who will stand up to the outrageous gerrymandering going on in this redistricting fiasco. The Democrats appear to have thought this out, set some traps, and launched some pre-emptive attacks in an attempt to take Martin off the board as a force that can stop them. So far it is working out their way. Let's hope Martin can bounce back, or we risk getting the Fayetteville Finger in every state House and Senate district.

Get What Beebe Wants, Then Shut it Down

The leadership in the legislature wants to close down the session by April Fools Day. This despite the fact that there are a large number of bills that have not gotten a fair hearing. I was just down there last week. Many members were frustrated because there was a long line of bills ahead of theirs to be considered and the clock was running out on them.

My question is simple. Why the imperative to close the session down so soon? In the past, sessions have lasted a lot longer than the 80 or so days they have slotted for this session. My feeling is that the Democrats just want to rush through Gov. Beebe's agenda and the pet projects of a few top Democrats, and then adjourn before anyone else can get their ideas a fair hearing.

With tensions high because of the time crunch, why not extend the session a week or two? To me, our Democrats are pulling a reverse-Wisconsin. Instead of walking out of the session to stop other ideas from getting a vote, they are shutting down the session quickly so that other ideas don't get a vote. Its the same in principle, and its bad partisan government either way.

If some of these conservative bills were put to a vote, they would win. Even if they lost, it would give voters a good idea of where their "conservative" legislator really stands. The Beebe and company solution appears to be to shut it down.

Patriots on Watch Net Radio: Real Money

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Mark Moore, former Spokesman for Ron Paul's presidential campaign in Arkansas, and Frank Gilbert, the former Mayor of Tull, Arkansas, discuss the issues of the day: Government making fake money arrests man for making real money. The Oath Keepers begin plans for when Washington fails. War by UN directive.

War Without Debate

“War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society these irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense.”- Randolf Bourne

“[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.- President John Adams

“I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.” - General Smedley Butler, two time winner of the Medal of Honor

Our country has just entered its third war. We started it. This was done without a Declaration of War from Congress, and was therefore done in violation of the United States Constitution. In fact, it wasn’t even debated in Congress.

We have now passed into a most dangerous position. Our military can be committed to start violence on another nation without Congressional approval or debate. Nor was there a public outcry for America to enter another war. Instead, Obama considered authorization from the United Nations as sufficient grounds to start this war.

I am not arguing that Col. Gaddafi is a good person. I am arguing that he is not a threat to the United States. He was actually less of a threat to us than some of the groups working to take his place. We don’t know that getting rid of him won’t lead to rivers of blood in a civil war much like what happened once Saddam was gone in Iraq. Freedom is best reserved for people who won’t use it to massacre their neighbors.

Our state department lacks the wisdom to decide who should or should not be running every country on earth, but they don’t seem to realize that. What they are doing now with all these foreign interventions is putting our children in crushing debt- we spent over $70 million in tomahawk missiles alone the very first hour of the effort. It’s also making them millions of bitter life-long enemies. What views would your children hold toward a foreign nation which started a war with us and dropped a bomb on you? John Adams was right. Seeking foreign monsters to slay is not a good idea, and even if it was, we can’t afford it.

Our government is currently doing a very sorry job of protecting our own rights. I think they ought to get a lot better at that before they decide to drop bombs on every mud hole on earth in an effort to somehow protect the rights of people in other nations. Even if our leaders intentions are good, over time even the foreigners who at first see us as liberators will come to see us as occupiers. Trying to impose the state department’s version of good government on people who don’t want it will only earn us enemies.

Using Gold and Silver as Money "Domestic Terrorism?"

So says the FBI. Here is a part of their statement.

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”

This is insane. The Feds are the counterfeiters with their endless streams of fiat dollars that have lost 96% of value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Where did that lost value go? Into the accounts of those who first got to spend the newly created dollars (which siphoned value from existing dollars). While Congress does have the power to "coin money", fiat notes are not money, and the Federal Reserve is not Congress. The Feds also have no authorization to institute legal tender laws- that being left to the states except they can only make gold or silver legal tender.

Grouping people who want a way out of government looting through currency destruction with people who blow up sky-scrappers full of civilians is twisted.

Without a Fig Leaf From Congress, America Plunges into 3rd War

Those tomahawk missiles that we launched about 100 of yesterday cost around 1.2 million dollars each. Just put it on the tab!

Patriots on Watch Net Radio: Rand Paul and the Toilet Nazi

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Rand Paul takes on the toilet Nazis. Also, this universe is so close to proving there is a god that atheists are looking for a loophole. What is it and what does it mean?

Facebook to Help Government Suppress Free Speech

....by reclassifying speech which is negative towards groups they favor as "bullying".

Patriots on Watch Net Radio

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Mark Moore, former Spokesman for Ron Paul's presidential campaign in Arkansas, and Frank Gilbert, the former Mayor of Tull, Arkansas, discuss the issues of the day. This weeks topics: Proposed changes in patent laws will tilt the rules in favor of the big boys. The oath keepers and nullification of extra-constitutional action. Obsession on sports while society crumbles, and more.

Sen. Jeffress: "You go tattle to the Tea Party"

A citizen writes an email to state legislators over the proposal to regulate farmers markets...

> > From: Fred
> > Sent: Mon 3/14/2011 10:32 AM
> > To: Jeffress, Gene; Jeffress Jimmy; Flowers,
> Stephanie;
> > Luker, Jim; Salmon, Mary Anne; Wyatt, David; Laverty,
> Randy;
> > Fletcher, Mike
> > Subject: Senate Bill 820 BAD BILL
> >
> >
> >
> > Senator,
> > Please help me understand why we need to regulate
> farmers
> > markets as to who can be "certified" to sell their
> > produce. Senate Bill 820 proposes to
> > disallow "peddlers" from participating. I
> > think in small communities we need all the vendors we
> can
> > find to give us fresh produce.
> > There are people willing to work at bringing food to
> local
> > people from areas that have produce when it is out of
> season
> > in our area.
> > This idea politicizes our food supply, something I
> think is
> > wrong.
> > With an advanced degree in Agriculture as a
> background, I
> > think you are on the wrong track. I
> > presently am in West Fork to be nearthe
> > VA. A local group is planning a farmers
> > market this Sspring fopr the first
> > time. They have enough challengies without
> > the intervention of State Government.
> > I am bringing this to the attention of the TEA Party
> at our
> > meeting tonight.
> > Thank you for your consideration.


Here is Jeffress reply....

> --- On Mon, 3/14/11, Jeffress Jimmy
> wrote:
>
> > From: Jeffress Jimmy
> > Subject: RE: Senate Bill 820 BAD
> BILL
> > To: "Fred"
> > Date: Monday, March 14, 2011, 11:40 AM
> >
> > Mr. R.,
> >
> > I'm sorry that you think this is a bad bill.
> > Personally, I want to be able to know that what I buy
> at a
> > Farmer's Market is fresh produce, not out-of-date
> > merchandise bought at Wal-Mart and foisted off as
> locally
> > grown.
> > Peddlers are free to operate anywhere they wish, just
> not
> > at a Farmer's Market. Why would I want to go to a
> > Farmer's Market and buy trinkets and such that I could
> buy
> > at Everythings A Dollar.
> >
> > It is funny that you are doing much as kids do in
> grade
> > school...running to tattle to the Tea Party like kids
> do to
> > the school principal. Ha!
> >
> > Have a great day.
> >
> > Jimmy Jeffress
> >
> > ________________________________
> >

John Pelphery Never Raised My Taxes

I will make the same point now that I made when Houston Nutt left the Razorbacks' football program.

John Pelphery is no longer the head basketball coach at the University of Arkansas. Many were overjoyed at the news. Others, like me and presumably John Pelphery himself, were simply relieved. Now it is time for reflections.

On further reflection, John Pelphery never raised my taxes. Since the men's basketball program is a revenue producing sport, I did not have to roll my lazy carcass out of bed early even one day in order to earn wages that I would later be required to pay to the government on account of him. He never invaded my privacy, reduced my freedom, or trampled on our constitutional liberties. Yet many full grown adults were very upset with him. I have not noticed these same people taking equal umbrage at those who do raise our taxes, and grow government until it consumes both our earnings and our liberties.

John Pelphery is a man who coaches a game played with a ball. That's it. Am I living in a repeat of the last days of Rome? In those times, the crowds were kept amused with bread and circuses while the integrity of their rulers and institutions crumbled around them.

Pay attention to the important stuff. Time is short.

NAACP Says Holder Goes Too Far

The NAACP has a lot of chapters, some of them more reasonable than others. The Dayton chapter says that Eric Holder's justice department has gone to far in allowing minority applicants who fail the test to still serve as police officers.

We are All Freaking Doomed!

If this poll is right, even most "Tea Party" types only want someone elses' federal benefits to be cut. That is the only force in the country making a serious fuss about our spending problem. If politicians know that even they are not committed to it, then the pols won't be either.

Harmonize This! Global Standards for Patents Tilts Playing Field

There is an excellent article by the magnificent Phyllis Schlafly on S.23, a patent "reform" bill. Bear in mind that the U.S. patent office is 100% self-funding. It's constitutional, and it was worked very well to help make America the leader in invention and innovation for over 200 years. So why do we need to change it? So that we can "harmonize" our patent laws with those of the European Union. And why is that desirable? So that global corporations can better subvert national sovereignty, and get a vast competitive advantage over the independent or small company inventor.

The article is a good read for those interested in economic and property rights issues. It is insane to try and "reform" the one part of the federal government that is working well and costing us nothing. This is yet another sign that real American citizens have lost control of their government to a small group of international elites and artificial persons known as "corporations."

Not Why We Sent Them: Republican Controlled Committee Forwards Proposal to Increase Fuel Taxes

Read it and weep, those of you who worked so hard to elected Republicans over Democrats. All we get to choose with this two party system is who gets to raise our taxes and put us in debt.

Sen. Rand Paul Takes on a Toliet Nazi

This guy is amazing.

Guest Post: Caught Between the Devil and the Deep Sea in a Two-Party System

This guest post is contributed by Phillip Donavan, who writes on the subject of Online Political Science Degrees. Phillip can be reached at his email id: phillip.donavan@gmail.com .

********************

There could be many advantages to a two-party political system, but what’s more obvious are the disadvantages of having to more often than not choose between the devil and the deep sea – neither option is viable, and it’s always a case of opting for the lesser of two evils than the one which is the better choice.

In a nation as large and diverse as the United States of America, it’s perhaps an irony that you have to vote either Republic or Democrat if you want to exercise your franchise and have a say in who governs the country and what policies will be enforced for the next four years. However, that’s exactly what we’re forced to do, time and again, each time the elections come around.

The biggest drawback of a two-party system is that neither feels the need to achieve excellence – all they have to do to get elected is to be a little better than other, or even just being perceived as being better than the other. It’s a well-established fact that competition drives excellence – in a race with 10 competitors, you must be better than the other 9 in order to win, and so you study each one’s weaknesses and use them to bolster your strengths so you emerge the winner. But in a two-horse race, you know that it’s enough to be just a tiny step ahead of the other competitor and you’re taking home the race. The margin of victory does not matter, only the fact that you won. So a two-party system most often leads to an administration that is not necessarily the best, but one which has come to power by being just a little ahead of the one that lost

Look at the US today – with the Democrats proposing higher taxes just to stay on the sweet side of the unions and the Republicans hell-bent on bombing any nation to the east of the Greenwich Meridian, the American voting public is caught between a rock and a hard place. This is one major reason why many people don’t vote – they don’t feel the need to take time out of their busy schedule and wait in line to cast their vote; why should they, when they know that no matter who holds the highest office of the nation, the country is going to be governed by policies they don’t agree with.

CONTINUED ON THE JUMP...

Patriots on Watch Net Radio

Mark Moore, former Spokesman for Ron Paul's presidential campaign in Arkansas, and Frank Gilbert, the former Mayor of Tull, Arkansas, discuss the issues of the day. Government Internet Bots, Obama Care, Foreclosure gate, Government Motors, and more.

Audio feed here.

Beebe Letter Not Really About Obamacare

My take on the fast-breaking and much talked about letter to HHS Secretary K. Sebelius: It's not about Arkansas being the first to implement Obamacare. It's just Blue Cross and State Government ganging up to force care providers to accept paltry reimbursement rates. He throws a few nods at Obamacare to get the waivers from the feds necessary to align pricing.

Beebe does not want doctors dumping Medicaid patients because they can get more money seeing patients with private insurance. Private insurance wants to get away with paying as little as Medicaid is paying. Normally you can't do that, but Blue Cross is the 800 lb gorilla in the business. That makes it easier to tag-team with government to dictate provider fee schedules than if there were eight or nine viable providers.

State government and Blue Cross want to tag-team the doctors and hospitals, and want Medicare to jump in on their side too.

It's not Obamacare, even if its still wrong for a whole different set of reasons.

All 50 State AGs Let Banksters off Hook for Forclosuregate

So that government of the banks, by the banks, and for the banks shall not perish from the earth.

Krugman A Stopped Clock on More Higher Ed

The uber left Arkansas Times continually cites Paul Krugman, the ridiculously wrong economic columnist at the New York Times. But even stopped clocks are right twice a day. Krugman has admitted that more spending on higher education does not necessarily generate economic growth. In so saying, he is finally catching on to something I have been saying for years. Here is how he put it...."What we can’t do is get where we need to go just by giving workers college degrees, which may be no more than tickets to jobs that don’t exist or don’t pay middle-class wages."

At last a golden nugget of truth in the roaring stream of delusion that is Paul Krugman's column. We have to build the business climate first, then the jobs will come. Taxing business into penury to fund humongous college programs only educates a workforce which will have to go elsewhere for applicable jobs.

Another Republican-Sponsored Non-Tax Increase that Will Result in You Paying More Taxes

I was willing to give them the benefit of a doubt on SB341, which allowed for charging for licenses to state medicaid providers if the feds would reimburse them for those licenses. I concluded the bill would contribute to our federal budget problems, and our federal representatives ought to fix it. I was not as ready to castigate our state legislators for taking the "free" money our corrupt federal government was offering.

But now one of them is at it again. Sen. Jake Files is sponsoring a bill that will not technically raise taxes, but it will result in us paying more taxes nevertheless. It's SB738, which changes collection responsibilities on internet sales taxes. Tolbert reports on the background of this bill of dubious constitutionality.

The bottom line is that while people still technically owe sales taxes for internet sales, the average person and maybe even the average legislator, would not know how a person would pay the state the sales taxes for their internet sales. If anyone knows how you would pay such sales taxes, please post it here. Traditionally there has been no effort made to collect these taxes. As such, this bill would be a de facto tax increase even if it is not a technical one.

I sympathize with brick and mortar businesses who are losing out to internet sales. Sure, they could offer internet sales too, but this puts us in the absurd position of buying from a distance instead of locally because high taxes make it less expensive to ship than to pay a sales tax. People in Nebraska would then order their goods from a shop in Sheridan and people here would buy from someplace in Springfield.

The root problem is government intervention that is so great that it distorts the market and leads to a miss-allocation of resources. That is, sales taxes in Arkansas are too high. That's the problem, not internet sales. The solution is to change the tax structure of this state. We should shift away from sales taxes and more to income taxes and user fees, so long as it is done in a revenue-neutral way. Sen. Files bill is not revenue neutral, despite the static calculations of the Department of Finance and Administration. If the sales tax in this state was 3% or less, it would remove much of the financial incentive to buy from the internet. Sen. Files is simply attempting to use more government intervention to resolve a problem caused by government intervention in the first place.

I am not saying that it will be easy to restructure our tax code, I'm saying that its right. Our state founders in their wisdom, called for a super-majority vote in the legislature to pass a tax increase. Sorry judges later ruled that this only applied to taxes that were in existence at the time the Constitution was enacted- and there was no sales tax at that time. So what happened was every time the ledge wanted to bleed us a little more, they voted to increase sales taxes, which needed only a majority vote. An income tax increase required a super-majority.

With (Jeb) Bush at Side, Obama Touts Education Plan

And why not? Jeb's daddy stood beside Ted Kennedy to enact his anti-constitutional federalization of local schools. They are after all, both big-government globalists. The illusion of choice can be discarded on this issue, as it has been on so many others. This is your "democracy" America.

Said Obama: "I am not willing to give up on any school in America."

The man can't handle his actual responsibilities, but that does not stop him from meddling in areas where the constitution he swore to uphold gives him ZERO responsibility. But at least he can string three or four sentences together that sound articulate- if given a teleprompter. The previous oath-breaker who decided to increase federalization of local schools (I guess because D.C. is doing such a great job at everything else?) was barely able to speak coherently. It did not appear to impact his assumption that he was fit to run all the schools in the country from D.C..

Did These Republican Senators Vote for A Tax Increase? Well....

Word is getting out that several Republican Senators joined their Democratic colleagues in voting for a "tax increase." The bill in question is SB341. Here are the Republican Senators who voted for the bill.....

GILBERT BAKER
JEREMY HUTCHINSON (he denies it and says the vote was wrongly recorded)
JONATHAN DISMANG
JOHNNY KEY
JAKE FILES
RUTH WHITAKER
EDDIE JOE WILLIAMS
BILLY SAMPLE

That part is not in doubt. What I wonder is whether or not this bill "rises to the level" of a tax increase, and if so, for whom. While this blog has been down on guys like Sen. Gilbert Baker in the past, I cannot in good conscience jeer him on this one. Instead, I want to explain the nuances and let you decide.

As I read the language of the bill what I see is an attempt to roll the federal government through a loophole in federal law. It allows Stategov to put fees on medicaid providers only to the extent that those fees are billable to medicare. In other words, the providers won't be out any money. The state taxpayers, as state taxpayers, won't be out any money. The stategov will be IN the money.

What about USgov? They are getting rolled. One could argue that if they are going to leave such loopholes open, they are asking for it. As a FEDERAL taxpayer I could object to the measure- if I thought that FEDGOV had a chance of surviving their terminal stupidity and overspending. Bernake is printing dollars like mad and giving most of them to the banksters. Is it so bad if our stategov gets in on the madness? Or put another way, other states are using the loophole to suck their share of cash out of fedgov, so maybe we need to do the same just to stay even. After all, when it all collapses we are going to be stuck with the tab even if we did not participate in the meal.

I am just playing devil's advocate with the above. I don't know that it makes voting for that bill the right thing to do. When you have a crazy, out of control fedgov like we have, they act in ways to blur the lines. When looking at it from a state citizen level rather than a federal citizen level, I am just not so convinced that it is a clear-cut tax increase. I am starting to view our fedgov as a house on fire. It's going to burn right to the foundation. Maybe we should quit trying to save them from their own stupidity and evil. No more trying to put out the fire while DC denizens are inside throwing fuel on it. Now we just concentrate on carrying as much stuff as we can get outside before the fire gets it.

Tell me the right answer here friends...

Christian Persecution in Britian

Quite the reversal of our failed efforts to keep homosexuals from being foster parents. In Britain, if you are a Christian who believes that sex outside of marriage is wrong that disqualifies you from being a foster parent! Those of you wondering how Britain went from being a world empire on which the sun never set to being a besotted little island mired in decay and misery, there is a clue for you. The values, attitudes, and habits which made for a strong and virtuous people added up to national greatness. That power was often abused- as most power is eventually, but the point is that the values their ruling class now hold has produced a "fallen" "Great" Britain in every way.

Is this official persecution coming to America soon? I believe so, because we have a GLOBAL class of ruling elites now. The only answer is decentralization of power. Let each state decide its own rules on these matters and leave a coercive central government out of it.

Counting the Cost on Obamacare

The state legislature is considering a package of at least 10 bills designed to bring Arkansas into compliance with the health care bill passed by Congress last year. I found one interesting. State Senator Missy Irvin (R-Mountain View) filed a bill to require state agencies to provide a cost impact on the implementation of the federal health care law.

It was my understanding that DFA is required to do a fiscal impact study on every bill before it goes to the legislature. Does someone know if that is the case for the bills designed to bring us into compliance with Obamacare? If so, is Sen. Irvin's bill redundant? If its not, my take is that by all means we should count the cost before we blindly rush into every extra-constitutional mandate that congressmen from other states choose to lay on our backs. The lefties are outraged at the suggestion that we should count the cost before we proceed. It seems like elementary prudence to me.

Tennesse Lawmaker Wants State to Consider its Own Currency

I already reported about Oklahoma's proposal to stockpile gold and silver to protect people in the case of a dollar collapse. Now a legislator in Tennessee wants to look at the idea of a state currency. Virginia and South Carolina already have state committees investigating the idea.

Those who are looking ahead are giving a "no confidence" vote to Bernake, his printing presses, and the dollars that flow from them to the banksters (by-passing main street).

Government Software to Create Fake People for Online Forums

The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites and create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues.

The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online.



More details here.

Read contract here.

Air Force launching similar effort.

The idea is to create an illusion of consensus in order to get people to feel like they need to compromise. How sad if we compromise on principle due to pressure applied by some government bots!