A plan for a government takeover of private health care institutions is making its way through congress at a rapid pace. President Obama is demanding a bill to sign before the August recess. Debating, crafting and analyzing a quality bill that Americans are aware of and comfortable with takes a back seat to getting it done before anyone has a chance to raise objections and threaten the proposal’s already fast-sinking popularity.

 

The House health care ‘reform’ bill (HR 3200) is over 1,000 pages long and makes profound changes to a myriad of existing laws and practices. Is one month enough time to analyze and understand the far-reaching impacts this proposal will bring to the entire health care infrastructure of the United States?

 

President Obama won’t commit to relying on the government-run health care he envisions, but contrary to his promise, “if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan – nobody is talking about taking that away from you,” everyone will eventually be forced into the government plan – it’s set up as a gradual encroachment, so you won’t notice the full impact right away. This is an all too common legislative trick and President Obama will never have to rely on the proposed health plan for himself or his family. Nor will the senators and representatives who will vote it up or down. Our leaders have set aside special taxpayer-funded health care plans for themselves that are available to them for the rest of their lives.

 

The government takeover of health care in America is supposed to make insurance and treatment more affordable and provide coverage to the poor, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the House version of health care ‘reform’ will cost over $1.5 trillion over the next ten years and add $750 billion to the already record-high federal deficit. Long-range projections by congressional staff additionally show annual deficits of $50 billion to $250 billion into the 2020s.

 

Historically, government has greatly underestimated the actual expense of its programs. For example, when Medicaid was enacted in 1966, it cost $3 billion and was projected to cost $12 billion in 1990. The actual Medicaid expenditure in 1990 was $107 billion, nearly tenfold the estimated cost (and it’s quadrupled since then). 

Contrary to the popular belief that the government health plan equates to free health care for all, a government administered plan will cost individuals and families plenty. Everyone will still be billed for insurance just the same as now. The difference is that people who currently choose not to carry health insurance will be forced to. Failure to enroll in a government-approved health care plan will result in a fine and involuntary enrollment into a randomly selected plan. On top of the insurance premiums, a tax increase will necessarily follow, because the federal government literally has no money to cover the tremendous additional cost of government administration. Ultimately, government-mandated health insurance will cost Americans more money without a commensurate increase in quality or access. Currently proposed tax hikes may have a disproportionate effect on small businesses.

Representative Polis (D – Colorado) said “some successful family-owned businesses would be taxed at higher rates than multinational corporations.”

• Obamacare Called 'Euthanasia Bill'
• GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors
• Disinfecting Obama's Health Care Plan

Minnesota Supreme Court Passes the Buck

The release of a House oversight committee report alleging the systematic commission of numerous serious crimes by the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) yesterday deepened Minnesota Majority’s concerns about the integrity of Minnesota’s elections. 

Meanwhile, the state’s Supreme Court issued a ruling asserting that it does not have original jurisdiction to Hear Minnesota Majority’s case that was focused on a discrepancy of vote totals. In April, it was found that at least 40,000 more ballots were counted than there were records of voters who cast them in the statewide voter registration system.

 

The facts aren’t in dispute. Secretary Ritchie admitted to the discrepancy and all of the factual evidence in the case was provided by the secretary of state’s office. The court’s order to dismiss the case was without prejudice, meaning the Supreme Court didn’t rule on the merits of the case, only jurisdiction. In fact, the order states Minnesota Majority’s intention is a “laudable goal,” and goes on to suggest submitting the petition to the office of Administrative Hearings, the venue the Supreme Court believes is the appropriate starting point for the complaint.

 

Attorney for the plaintiffs, Erick Kaardal believes that the court’s decision is in error. “The statewide voter registration system is the lynchpin to the integrity of Minnesota’s elections. By sending the plaintiffs to lower tribunals, the court has essentially excused Secretary of State Mark Ritchie from his duties to accurately update the SVRS in a timely manner after the 2008 election,” he said.

 

Election integrity is becoming a hot issue, not just in Minnesota, but around the nation. More and more Irregularities are being found in several states. Prosecutions for election fraud are underway around the country and ACORN is often found to be in the middle of the controversies.

 

ACORN has been deeply involved in Minnesota’s elections for years. They’ve had their hand in electing Minnesota’s chief elections official (Secretary Ritchie) through financial and worker support. They take credit for tens of thousands of voter registrations in the run up to the 2008 election and we’ve already uncovered a lot of serious problems with our election records. It’s at least a little ironic that on the day the US Congress released an 88-page document alleging racketeering and money laundering by ACORN, Minnesota’s Supreme Court declined to hear evidence of election irregularities in Minnesota, a state where ACORN has been extraordinarily involved in the election process.

 

In the court’s 6-page order to dismiss, the chief justice states, “the time for contesting any irregularity in the 2008 election is long since passed,” in reference to Minnesota Statute 209.03, which states, notice of an election contest shall be served and filed within 7 days after the canvass is completed.

 

The irony continues. No one could have even known about the vote total discrepancy until late April, because the county auditors and secretary of state failed to meet statutory deadlines – in part, the very reason Minnesota Majority filed suit in the first place. If you dwell on that concept for too long, the paradoxical logic loop that ensues may cause your entire field of vision to become obscured by an intractable expanse of bright blue, followed by an involuntary restart of your brain.

 

The Help America Vote Act requires voter histories to be updated, “immediately.” State statute allows 6 weeks. Whether these concepts are compatible is probably debatable, but the reasoning behind the federal language, “immediately” comes into sharp focus.

 

In this particular instance, the way state statutes are structured, the Supreme Court order renders them unenforceable and even meaningless. Citizen intervention to protect the integrity of Minnesota elections appears impotent.

 

In light of the new congressional report, and dismissal by the Supreme Court of its thus-far undisputed case, Minnesota Majority is reiterating its call for investigation into irregularities in Minnesota’s election records.

 

Over the past three months, Minnesota Majority has discovered records in the statewide voter registration system that indicate deceased people, convicted felons and non-citizens voted in the 2008 election. Evidence of double-voting and voter registrations with non-deliverable addresses was also found.

 

In Minnesota Majority’s view, there is only one sure way to prevent the kinds of errors and potential abuse that have led to so much doubt in the integrity of Minnesota’s elections: Require photo ID to vote.

 

If this issue is important to you, there are three ways to take direct and immediate action. Don’t delay. We can’t afford to hand another election over to errors and abuse. The stakes are too high.

 

We all desire and deserve fair, transparent elections.Recommend your friends to sign up for a free membership with Minnesota Majority so they can join the critical fight for election integrity in Minnesota. 

A US House Oversight Committee has released a report on their investigation into alleged wrongdoing by ACORN

A House oversight committee has released a report charging that ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has engaged in widespread corruption including laundering federal grant money and funneling taxpayer dollars into partisan political campaigns.

ACORN has been under investigation in several states for alleged improprieties arising from their activities around the 2008 elections. The House oversight document purports to provide a comprehensive examination of the allegations against ACORN – and they are numerous.

ACORN played a large role in Minnesota’s 2008 elections as well. They endorsed and provided financial support to the campaigns of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and Attorney General Lori Swanson. Perhaps not coincidentally, ACORN is not facing criminal charges or even investigation in Minnesota. Maybe this is the one state where they played by the rules.

ACORN took credit for registering at least 40,000 Minnesota voters in the run-up to the 2008 elections. Evidence of fraudulent voter registrations began to emerge almost immediately. Fictitious characters were registered, and at least one convicted felon who was incarcerated at the time managed to submit a new voter registration. It appears that the registration was fraudulently submitted by someone engaged in a voter registration drive.

 

Minnesota’s Secretary of State has remained adamant that Minnesota’s elections are pristine, a model for the nation, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary being brought to his attention.

 

Minnesota Majority’s independent investigation of the 2008 election has uncovered evidence of duplicate votes, deceased people, convicted felons and non-citizens voting, non-deliverable mailing addresses used in voter registrations and other anomalies like more ballots counted than voter histories in the statewide voter registration system would indicate were cast.

 

Minnesota Majority has repeatedly called for investigations into problems with Minnesota’s election records. In 2005, a joint law enforcement task force consisting of the FBI, the Justice Department, Milwaukee County, and Milwaukee city police conducted an investigation into the 2004 general election in Milwaukee. Their findings were strikingly similar to situations in Minnesota that have thus-far not been investigated by law enforcement. 

The evidence is mounting, suggesting that ACORN may have been deliberately structured as a criminal enterprise and this organization had its hands all over Minnesota’s elections. Simultaneously, evidence of election irregularities continues to come to light. Therefore, Minnesota Majority renews our call for investigation into election irregularities and improprieties in Minnesota.

Read the complete report.

Get updates on Twitter.

The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) kicks off their annual conference in Minneapolis on Friday. Today, visiting secretaries from around the nation enjoyed social time at the Minneapolis Hilton, then prepared to board a bus for a golf outing at Keller Golf Course in St. Paul. Minnesota Majority and several citizens concerned about election integrity greeted them as they left the hotel this afternoon.

 

Over a dozen concerned citizens showed up with signs and posters in support of photo ID. One sign with a picture of a drivers’ license read, “The Election Integrity Card – Don’t vote without it.”

 

Talk radio host Sue Jeffers and gubernatorial candidate Representative Tom Emmer (R – Delano) joined the demonstrators.

 

As the golf bags were being loaded and visiting secretaries of state boarded the bus, they were offered a sleeve of complimentary golf balls imprinted with the words, “Election Integrity.” They were asked to “keep their eyes on the ball.”

 

Hotel security initially seemed apprehensive about the group of demonstrators gathering outside, but they quickly warmed to the group once they saw nobody was out to cause any trouble. “You guys are great – we're having a good time,” said one member of the security staff.

 

For the most part, the secretaries of state greeted the crowd warmly, graciously accepting the golf balls and exchanged friendly banter with demonstrators before boarding the bus to the golf course. 

With elections being decided by increasingly narrow margins, even a fractional level of errors or abuse can call the legitimacy of elections into question. The only definate way to ensure an accurate reflection of the will of the people in an election is by requiring photo ID to verify identity and eligibility before voting.

Take Action: Sign the Election Integrity Petition.

Follow Dan McGrath on Twitter

Dan McGrath Discusses Election Integrtiy Issues with Tim Kinley on "Speechless"

Minnesota Majority is providing new evidence of double voting to the appropriate county attorneys. 

Additional Resources:
Listen to a discussion of election issues on the Sue Jeffers Show from Saturday, July 11th.

• Part 1 (begins about 14:00 in) 
• Part 2

Take Action: Sign the Election Integrity Petition.

In the course of our ongoing research into irregularities into Minnesota’s election system, Minnesota Majority has discovered evidence that non-citizens may have voted in the 2008 election.

 

In September 2008, Representative Laura Brod (R - New Prague) contacted Secretary of State Mark Ritchie with concerns that non-citizens were apparently present on Minnesota’s voter registration rolls. State law requires drivers licenses issued to non-citizens residing in Minnesota on temporary visas to bear the mark “status check.” That mark acts as a flag to law enforcement officials to check the expiration date of the individual’s visa to verify they are still legal visitors. Visa information also appears in the computerized Department of Public Safety Records. A comparison of DPS records with the statewide voter registration list revealed several non-citizens had somehow become registered to vote, which is in itself illegal.

 

Several weeks prior to the election, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie held a press conference in which he indicated that he was unaware that the DPS had, for nearly two years, been providing his office with a monthly list of drivers’ license records containing non-citizen visa information. He thanked Representative Brod for bringing the issue to his attention. He also assured the public that his office would be checking this information prior to the election and that appropriate challenges would be issued at polling places to prevent non-citizens from voting.

 

A review of 2008 election records by Minnesota Majority shows that many of the non-citizens Representative Brod originally brought to the attention of the Secretary of State prior to last year’s election are still on active voter registration rolls and several actually appear to have voted in the 2008 general election.

 

Representative Brod provided the Secretary of State with the list of names. She pointed right at the problem. Secretary Ritchie acknowledged the problem and said that he had corrected it. Despite that claim, election records show these very same people are still on the rolls and some have voter histories that indicate they voted in the 2008 general election. 

Minnesota Majority has also received reports from election poll watchers that same-day registrants with “status check” flags on their identification cards were allowed to register and vote in the 2008 election. A formal complaint filed by one poll watcher states that an official from the Secretary of State’s office told election officials that the words “status check” on a voter’s identification card was not justification to deny a vote to anyone. Only non-citizens have driver’s licenses or state-issued identifications marked “status check” as this is an indication that the person is visiting the US on a visa.

Take Action: Sign the Election Integrity Petition and send a message to your elected officials.

By Michele Bachmann

Right now in Washington, D.C., we are seeing nothing short of the deconstruction of America’s free-market system. To be blunt, the strong arm tactics of the Obama Administration’s Auto Task Force are crushing the dreams of many American business owners – and simultaneously putting our future prosperity in jeopardy.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve spoken with the GM and Chrysler car dealerships from my district that have been targeted for total or partial closure by President Obama’s Auto Task Force. They were given no reason, and really no recourse to challenge their closure. It is as if someone threw a dart at a dartboard to decide which dealerships would be given a pink slip. In fact, we still do not know the formula used to determine which dealers would remain open, and which ones would close.

 

At one dealership in my district, the owner received an envelope from FedEx with a closure agreement inside, informing them that their highly profitable and nearly century-old business was slated for closure, and that they had twelve days to sign the agreement, or face the consequences.

 

Unbelievably, if they chose not to sign the agreement by the prescribed date, GM would not offer a warranty on any of the remaining cars on their lot.  If they challenged the contract in court, the dealers would not only have to pay for their own legal fees, but GM’s as well, to the tune of $1,500 per hour – and that was whether they won or lost. And, even if they opted to sign the agreement, they were obligated to send GM their customer lists and service customer lists. It is a lose-lose deal for the owners who are taking it on the chin no matter what their decision.

 

As the owners stressed to me – tactics like this are not the America they know and love. Columnist Michael Barone likened the actions of the Obama Auto Task Force to the tactics of a “gangster government,” and I couldn’t agree more.

 

In crafting their deals, government trampled long-held legal principles.  For instance, unsecured creditors, the United Auto Workers labor union, were jumped ahead of secured creditors, the teachers and police officers’ pension funds in Indiana, in bankruptcy court.  Government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers.  And, government certainly shouldn’t be ignoring established law simply because it suits their political ambitions.

 

It is unthinkable, but today consumers and businessmen aren’t deciding what cars should be manufactured or what dealerships should be successful or how much advertising is enough.  Government is making these decisions. 

 

Simply put, politics and business operate in different ways and are vulnerable to different influences as they strive to reach very different goals.  Each Member of Congress in Washington is looking out for his or her own state or district's interests and sometimes that works against the interest of the company they are now essentially running.  When Congress stepped into the Board Room, it set itself up to try to achieve two sometimes contradictory goals – protect their constituents and save this company.  Government is simply ill-equipped to try to be both the governor and the governed – and it surely can’t do both well.

I am a proud cosponsor of the Automobile Dealer Economic Rights Restoration Act of 2009 that would honor a car companies previous commitments to local car dealers.  I have written to both President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and asked them to reverse course.  And, I’m looking into whatever legal options might be available for Congress to give these dealerships a fighting chance.  These businesses are community landmarks, important job providers, and local economic catalysts.  They deserve better treatment from their government than arbitrary pink slips that wipe out a lifetime’s work and investment.

The American Dream is in need of saving, and it’s up to all of us to work hard to save it.

Michele Bachmann is Minnesota's 6th District representative to the U. S. House.

Democrat Representatives Keith Ellison (5^th District), Betty McCollum (4^th District), James Oberstar (8^th District), Tim Walz (1^st District) and Collin Peterson (7^th District) all voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Collin Peterson chairs the House agriculture committee and initially expressed reservations about the bill because of the disproportionate impact it would have on farmers and rural communities. In the end, his Democrat colleagues got him back in the boat, though and he voted to pass the bill.

 

Freshman Republican Erik Paulsen (3^rd District)  voted no and immediately released a YouTube video explaining his reasons.

 

6^th District Republican Michele Bachmann, a staunch opponent of cap-and-trade-style swindles, predictably voted no on ACES, as did Second District Republican John Kline.

 

The Cap and Trade bill passed the U. S. House by a mere 7 votes and is now headed to the Senate for their approval before being passed to President Obama’s eager hands for a speedy signature.

HR 2454, the "Cap and Tax" bill known as ACES was brought to the floor of the United States House of Representatives today. A 300 page amendment to the over 1,000 page bill was brought forward at 3:09 this morning and a final, official copy of the bill was not available to House members during debate on passage of the bill.

House Republicans repeatedly inquired about the whereabouts of a printed copy of the final bill and were rebuffed by the Democrat chair. In short, virtually no one had read the bill being considered for final passage.

Shortly before 6:30 PM CST, a roll call vote on final passage was called. The bill was passed by a vote of 219 – 212. 211 Democrats voted for passage with 43 Democrats voting no. 8 Republicans voted in favor of passage with 168 of them voting no. One Democrat didn’t vote and 2 Republicans didn’t vote.

The cap and trade bill will now move to the U. S. Senate for their consideration. If it passes there, it’s on its way to becoming law by the stroke of President Obama’s pen.

Far more Democrats voted against the bill than Republicans voted for it, which is telling in a broad sense when considered in light of the wishes of the American electorate – most of whom oppose this bill.

One could say that a lack of Republican unity was responsible for the bill’s passage. Had the tiny minority of Republican congressmen who voted in favor of the bill abstained, or voted no, the bill would have failed.

The American people are under assault by officials in the federal government. Under the specious guise of saving the planet, they intend to fleece the people to benefit political allies, powerful money interests and a political agenda that is in direct opposition to the American way of life.

 

By President Obama’s own admission, with a cap and trade scheme like the Waxman- Markey Bill, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

 

 

Even if the hotly contested claims of carbon-driven manmade global warming were to be believed, the touted climate benefit of the Waxman-Markey bill is that global surface temperatures will be one tenth of one degree cooler than currently projected in one hundred years. 

ACES comes with an incredible price tag and promises no significant short or long-term benefit to either the American people or the global climate. This bill is nothing but another attempt to at a massive power and money grab by Washington’s elite.

To enrich a few powerful financial beneficiaries, like producers of wind turbines, and carbon trading firms such as the one former vice president and climate-alarmist-in-chief Al Gore profits from, Waxman-Markey is poised to decrease our national gross domestic product by $7 trillion dollars or more and cost another 1.9 million jobs, while adding sharply to the average families’ financial burden. Electricity rates could increase as much as 90% (nearly double what you now pay), Gasoline prices could rise 75%.