JAMES SIMPSON:

As described in an earlier post, nothing could be further from the truth. Social Security checks will continue to be mailed, ships will sail and planes will fly. Most people won’t know the difference.

The table included here proves the point. (Click on the picture to enlarge) It was taken from the appendix of a Department of Homeland Security document titled, “Procedures Relating to a Federal Funding Hiatus,” dated April 8, 2011 – i.e. today. The “DHS Component” column indicates the acronym for the relevant agency, eg USSS = United States Secret Service; FLETC = Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, ICE = Immigration and Customs Enforcement, etc. The chart indicates that DHS has a total of 222,950 employees. It also indicates that of these, 189,362 are exempt. In  In other words,approximately eighty-five percent of DHS employees will continue to go to work. A mere fifteen percent will be temporarily furloughed.

What impact would releasing that land to developers have in housing prices? Keeping this land locked up has artificially inflated real estate prices and made multi-millionaires of developers and contractors in California.

Such is the case in every state in the US, to a greater or lesser degree. The map below details the percentage of real estate owned by the government in each state. The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned property are:

1. Nevada           84.5%
2. Alaska            69.1%
3. Utah               57.4%
4. Oregon           53.1%
5. Idaho              50.2%
6. Arizona           48.1%
7. California        45.3%
8. Wyoming         42.3%
9. New Mexico     41.8%
10. Colorado          36.6%

The Feds own nearly 30% of all US territory, almost 650 million acres of land. When we think of the US indebtedness (see US Debt Clock in right column), we do not take into account the assets this country owns. Just by selling “public” lands to private investors the US could raise significant capital. Much of this land is mineral laden and oil rich.

This doesn’t count all the offshore property the US owns. There are billions of barrels of oil lying beneath US territorial waters, forbidden to drilling. Does it make any sense that the price of gas at the pump is controlled by the Saudis when we have so much energy here in the US?

Our dollars flow out of the US like oil out of a gushing well, only to be used to prop up illegitimate regimes and to finance terrorist activities. Just think of the wealth the US could retain if we were paying ourselves for all that oil instead of OPEC.

Our roads and national infrastructure in the US lie in shambles while Arabs build skyscrapers that rival the tower of Babel. Airports and highways in Arab countries glisten while airports like LaGuardia look like third world countries. All of the developments in the Mideast are being paid for with US dollars.

The question you should be asking yourself is why does our federal government lock up our lands and oil? Our politicians have driven our country into bankruptcy. It’s time to sell off some assets and bring our debt back into control. While we are at it let’s quit sending our dollars overseas to prop up dictators like Qaddafi and the House of Saud.

JAMES SIMPSON:

A group called the Ventura County Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business (VC COLAB) detailed these problems in a recent seminar held by the Ventura County Libertarian Party. VC COLAB Executive Director Lynn Gray Jensen cited planned revisions to Ventura County’s Biology Initial Study Assessment Guidelines (ISAG), which they describe as “a lengthy and complex draft of terminology, thresholds, methodology and restrictive covenants to be applied to county projects that are subject to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).” Look at the 210 page document and see if you don’t agree. Simply mind-numbing.

ISAG had identified 19 practices and conditions determined to be “unsustainable.” Imagine yourself a VenturaCountyfarmer who owns a parcel of undeveloped land. You want to grow crops or build a structure, but it has been identified as “protected property” by California’s onerous environmental regulations. The restrictions identified by VC COLAB are nothing short of horrifying. Following is a partial list:

In addition to owners being prohibited, without express approval from the County Planning Director, from conducting normal agricultural activities such as filling, storing and removal of soil and rock; erection of buildings, fencing, corrals and other structures; placement of pavements, stones, gravel, etc., for pathways; and grazing of livestock, property owners must not keep pet animals or operate bicycles, mowers, tractors or any other vehicles (motorized or not) on their land. Other limitations apply to planting, harvesting, landscaping and irrigating. It bears repeating, these restrictions would be applied to the property by way of mandatory deed amendments, and thus remain in place permanently, even as the property is passed on to heirs or is sold.

No bikes? No pets?

Effectively, you couldn’t grow crops, keep livestock or clear a field. Your kids couldn’t even ride their bikes on the land! And if you ever sold or bequeathed it, subsequent owners would be subject to the same restrictions. In other words, your land would essentially be dead. Over time, it would become engulfed in an overgrown tangle, as the land was reclaimed by the wild. Your property value would fall to zero. Right now, this only applies to undeveloped land, but if they can take some of your property this way, why not all of it? The precedent has been set.

This is the exact goal of the Wildlands Project adopted by the UN’s Agenda 21 Biodiversity Treaty, as clearly elucidated by its author, the radical tree-spiking EarthFirst! terrorist, Dave Foreman:

We must make this place an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects… We must reclaim the roads and plowed lands, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land.

As I have said many times before, these people are insane. But that is not all. A key component in Foreman’s Wildlands Project is the creation of “Wildlife Corridors” or “Wildways.” According to VC COLAB:

Pertaining to Wildlife Corridors, although over fifty percent (approximately 600,000 acres) of the County’s public land is currently preserved for wildlife movement, VenturaCountyis promoting the further expansion of “conservation corridors” to include private lands. As much as 140,000 acres of private property has been targeted for this purpose. The County used a report in their Guidelines produced by South Coast Missing Linkages (SCML), which sets targets for wildlife agencies. This report has not been made available for public review, lacks specifics and, it is feared, will be misused where applied to impacts analysis and restrictive covenants… (Emphases mine.)

Read more…

Will airports shut down because air traffic controllers have gone on leave? Will those mean Republicans throw granny out in the street when Social Security stops sending payments? Will everyone who receives checks in the mail see their income dry up because the Post Office shuts down?

Will welfare mothers have to feed their children cat food?

The Democrats will tell you that and more. A Google search of “government shutdown” brings up pages describing dire consequences. But if you follow the links you will see that this is more a reflection of leftist web domination than anything else.

The greatest consequence of a government shutdown will be the Democrat-generated media hysteria we will have to put up with unless/until they get their way. They will demagogue at every opportunity, describing fantastic scenes of nationwide anarchy. They will do what they always do, about the only thing they do well, and in fact have already begun doing:

They will lie.

President Obama almost immediately threatened that Social Security checks would stop coming.

He lied.

Think Progress, the archetypical radical left propaganda rag, interviewed freshman Republican Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), who pooh poohed worries about a government shutdown. They didn’t ask him to qualify, but later attempted to discredit his message:

Kelly’s assertions are simply not true. One need look no further than the federal government shutdown of 1995 for proof. During the nearly four-week shutdown, Social Security checks were not mailed and Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements were disrupted.

They lie.

The whole article is a carefully constructed deception—an echo chamber for Democrat demagoguery. Follow the links. They’re hoping you won’t.

The first link goes to a Wikipedia entry that describes the 1995 shutdown. No mention of social security checks. The second goes to an article at Talking Points Memo, the hard left smear site. It simply quotes more Democrats, like Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Reich and Donna Shalala, then HHS Secretary. She said,

“It was a mess, frankly, and devastating to the civil service… It seems to me it’s un-American…”

Devastating to the civil service…

I find that telling. Her biggest concern is the impact on… government. And what a joke. We are talking about two shutdowns here, one of five days and another of three weeks—merely a long vacation for most government bureaucrats.

Un-American? Well, she should know.

According to TPM, Shalala provided a list of payments that would stop: “Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursements…welfare checks to the state, Medicaid checks to the state.”

She lied.

Republicans also must pound the airwaves with reminders that a government shutdown would be due entirely to Democrat intransigence. Republicans are merely trying to keep their pledge to the American people, who in November of 2010 sent an unmistakable message to the Democrats: knock it off!

This is a critical juncture in our Nation’s history. Republicans must demonstrate some intestinal fortitude for a change. A few days ago, I posted an article demanding that Speaker Boehner put up or shut up by allowing amendments to the Continuing Resolution currently under consideration that would defund Obamacare. Given that the bill passed the House with such provisions, it appears he decided to put up. There are now a number of amendments that have been successfully attached to the CR that will accomplish that goal.

Speaker Boehner and House Republicans, you have the voters on your side, you have the facts on your side, and never in our history has it been more important for you to take a principled stand. Do not back down in the face of the Democrats’ government shutdown threats. We don’t want that, but if Democrats insist on continuing to trash our country, I say, “bring it on!”

Read original article its entirety here.

The House is currently considering a Continuing Resolution to fund government programs for the rest of the year. A temporary CR was passed in the waning days of the 111th Congress that expires March 4th. Without a new CR the government will then shut down.

Representative Steve King (R-IA) offered an amendment to the CR that would entirely defund Obamacare. What better way to force Democrats to abide by the crystal clear will of the American people than to offer them the stark choice of passing the CR and defunding Obamacare in the process, or having the government shut down due to their arrogant stubbornness? And do most Americans care if the government shuts down for a while?

NO! We’d be relieved! Shut it down and keep it shut until the Democrats squeal “Uncle!”

So, Republicans should be all for King’s amendment, right?

Wrong.

Last night, the House Rules Committee headed by David Dreier of California, blocked the amendment, claiming that it violated House rules. This is absolutely false. As King stated in a Washington Times editorial today:

One of the tactics is to argue that my proposal violates the rules by legislating on an appropriations bill. It wasn’t a violation when Congress defunded the Vietnam War, and it’s not a violation now. The CR, the very bill that I seek to amend, has language in it that blocks the use of any funds to move detainees out of GuantanamoBay. By their definition, they’ve set a precedent and all I ask is to use the same tool to debate and vote on blocking the use of any funds to implement or enforce Obamacare.

Defunding Obamacare also would avoid $105.5 billion in Obamacare seed money slated for spending in 2011 that Nancy Pelosi slipped into the bill last year. So not only could Republicans keep their pledge to stop Obamacare, they would actually be doubling the budget cuts offered in the CR. Read more…

Chevy Volt Subsidized by US Taxpayers

WASHINGTON: Obama’s budget proposal this week includes a $7500 tax credit for all electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Volt. Such proposals have popular support and seem on first glance a benefit to consumers and taxpayers alike. Upon further examination this particular initiative neither improves the environment nor helps the economy, but instead amounts to a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Let’s look at it.

The assumption that electric vehicles are cleaner for the environment is not one without challenges. Electric vehicles get their fuel from the coal-driven power grid. They also introduce a new pollutant to the environment, substantial quantities of lead. When compared to the clean cars already on the market the new EVs do not present a substantial improvement to the environment:

What’s going on here? ”We’ve known for quite some time that zero-emissions cars wouldn’t make much difference if they substituted for very clean ones,” Robert Hahn, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, said.

And new cars are very clean: the gasoline-powered cars mandated for California remove 95 to 98 percent of the pollutants detrimental to health. Note, too, that most plants in California generating electricity for the electric cars burn natural gas, emitting pollutants that offset part of the already modest gains made at the tailpipe. Peter Passell, New York Times

How popular are these vehicles and what kind of impact they will have in the environment is still being discovered. Last year is the first year the Leaf and the Volt were offered for sale. If you add January 2011 sales to the total of 2010 sales you get 650 Volts and 106 Leafs were sold in the entire US. The most hopeful 2011 sales forecast is 20,000. 20,000 vehicles will make no difference to our environment. Is the $220 million price tag worth it?

Another part of the initiative are grants of $10 million each to 30 cities to build public plugin stations. It only makes sense to put these stations in highly populated areas like the Northeast, Chicago, and the West Coast. Another $300 million payoff to blue state Obama voters.

Let’s look at the $7500 price tag of the Obama tax “incentive”. What is the source of this $7500? $5000 comes from taxpayers and $2500 is borrowed. If you add the interest payments of a 30 year bond on the part that is financed you add $3500 to the cost, bringing the total cost to American taxpayers to over $11,000. Even though many think that the “poor” pay no federal taxes, yet all employed persons pay FICA and Medicare which funds are poured into US general revenue coffers and spent at will. You can be assured that none of those folks can afford the $40,280 price tag of the Chevy Volt, even with the subsidy.

Obama at "Work" Again

Since the US government owns General Motors you can expect initiatives like this one. That’s what happens when government takes over private industry: they tilt the playing field for their benefit. Just last week the Department of Transportation exonerated Toyota for last year’s accelerator scare. The US government did all they could to pound Toyota for their impertinence of becoming the world’s #1 carmaker, all in an effort to depress Toyota sales and benefit GM. At the time NIP warned our readers of the motives behind the scare and now the Department of Transportation has proven us right.

Obama’s $7500 subsidy amounts to an advertising program for GM, a payoff to auto unions, and a blue state get-out-the-vote drive. Sure, GM and the UAW make money, but where does the money come from? It comes from taxpayers who have no choice in the matter and who can’t afford it. It’s robbing the poor to benefit the rich. Where is Robin Hood when we need him?

As always the reports and regulations are dumped on the American public after 11 PM and voted on within hours to prevent Americans from learning the truth. Of course, this is done during Christmas week when folks do not have time to check the news. You won’t have to worry about checking the news in the future, because under the hands of the FCC all news channels will eventually be controlled by the government. Someday your grandchildren, struggling to pay off our debt to the Chinese will ask you, “Where were you grandpa when our rights to free speech were stolen? Why didn’t you do something?”

Listen to FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell explain what just happened:

BABE HUGGETT:

The Democratic Party’s vehemence was triggered by the King Street Patriots’ dedicated uncovering of voter fraud on the rolls and its non-partisan True the Vote initiative, which seeks to assure fair and free elections for voters of all political parties through education and training of poll watchers and poll workers to look out for additional voter fraud at the polls.

Some of the election abuses uncovered and documented by the King Street Patriots have included multiple voter registrations, non-citizen voter registrations, fraudulent voter information, forged voter signatures, election officials verbally bullying voters to either change their ballot choices or vote a straight Democratic ticket up to and including actually manipulating the voting machines for the voters and elected officials, like Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, campaigning directly outside polling places. Other documented Democratic Party member abuses include a lunatic minister and a self-proclaimed leader of the New Black Panthers along with his henchmen entering polling places to verbally and physically intimidate poll watchers.

The Democratic Party is joined by two front groups in a lawsuit and an ethics complaint against Catherine Engelbrecht and the King Street Patriots. The two groups are Texans for Public Justice and Texans Together Education Fund. Both groups receive their money from the Open Society Institute (OSI). OSI was founded in 1993 by George Soros to “Build Vibrant & Tolerant Democracies” so it is ironic to see that tolerance is not extended to groups dedicated to fighting voter fraud. Texans Together Education Fund’s subsidiary is Houston Votes currently itself accused by the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector office of voter fraud registration.

Catherine Engelbrecht and the King Street Patriots are represented by the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, Liberty Institute and the James Madison Center for Free Speech, which was founded to protect the First Amendment rights of free speech and political discourse for American citizens and citizen groups.

The president and CEO of Liberty Institute, Kelly Shackelford, stated, “As a matter of law, corporations cannot sue individuals for defamation; this attack is baseless.  All these attacks are clearly an attempt to bully and silence a group of volunteer citizens who are just trying to keep the election process honest. This is pure desperation by a Democratic Party everyone knows is not doing so well.”

Additionally, James Bopp, Jr., the architect of the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United campaign finance case, who is a lead Constitutional counselor at the James Madison Center for Free Speech and who is personally handling the King Street Party’s countersuit said, “The Texas Democratic Party is using state law to try to silence citizens’ political free speech even though the U.S. Supreme Court vigorously applies First Amendment protections in this area. Nonprofit 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to engage in the political process without disclosing their donors or registering as a political committee, and Texas laws to the contrary are unconstitutional.”

The last word, however, goes to Catherine Engelbrecht herself, who commented, “Although I’m disgusted by these attacks, I am not deterred.  Our work in Houston and our vision for a fair and free election in every county of the nation continues. These lawsuits are exactly the kind of abusive disrespect for citizens that got our political leaders into trouble. We will not be intimidated by partisan attacks, by the Democratic Party, or by anyone.”

And, in a phone interview with this reporter last night, Engelbrecht added the following determined statement, “We’re prepared to go the distance.”

King St Patriots Fight Back

Speaking for the King Street Patriots was their Liberty Institute lawyer, Jonathan Saenz, who enumerated the harassment the poll watchers have endured from verbal abuse and veiled threats all the way up to being physically manhandled and assaulted.

Saenz said, “We are so concerned by these attacks against volunteer poll-watchers, most of whom are stay-at-home moms or elderly, that we have asked the Justice Department to help and even attend True the Vote poll watcher trainings. Having poll watchers is not only the law, it is crucial in a free society that all candidates and parties can see and make sure the election was held with integrity. Being attacked for fulfilling that civic role is inexcusable.”

King Street Patriots leader, Catherine Engelbrecht, backed up Saenz’s statement when she took the mike and commented, “Many of the poll watchers being attacked are soccer moms and senior citizens, who volunteer their time because they love their country and want to ensure a free and fair election. The True the Vote poll watcher trainings are for anyone who wants to get involved. Attacks on silent poll watchers are not only against the law but shameful.”

King Street patriots and the trained poll watchers have come under increasingly slanderous and libelous attacks from the local and national media along with prejudiced commentary from organizations like the NAACP. From the aggressive tenor of the agenda-driven questions asked as exemplified by the local Channel 26TV FOX affiliate at the press conference, the reporters there seemed to think that the King Street Patriots and the poll watchers were the ones, who had created the hostile atmosphere at the polling places originally.

This was countered by actual poll watchers themselves coming to the podium as credible witnesses to counteract the false and misleading news reporting by Main Stream Media outlets.

First to speak was poll watcher, Shirley Andries, who said she saw clerks at her polling place literally showing hundreds of voters how to vote by “assisting” them, mainly how to vote a straight Democratic ticket. She mentioned one incident where a clerk aggressively questioned one voter over their choices then ordered them back into the booth to change their ballot selections to a straight Democratic Party ticket.

Next up were husband and wife team, Tom and Francine Fiesel, first time volunteers, whose harassment at the polls included verbal abuse and veiled threats to their homes and families. Their first problem came when a voter complained that the Fiesels were white followed shortly by a member of the clergy coming in to yell abuse at them. Poll watchers must supply personal information in order to be accredited and the judge at the polling place the Fiesels were at handed over the Fiesels’ personal information to this gentleman, who then faxed it. The Fiesels reported that the clergyman acted like he was in an official capacity and the clerks cooperated with him fully.

While recounting their harrowing experience, Francine’s broke into tears and her husband, Tom, an Iraqi war veteran, had to finish up. After the press conference was over, he admitted to this reporter that dodging bullets in Iraq was less frightening than being a poll watcher in Houston.

However, Tom went on to confirm their commit to ensuring the integrity of the voting process by saying, “Voting is sacred, the bedrock of America.”

The final poll watcher witness was Melinda Kinley, who appeared on video to recount how she was manhandled by a clerk, who grabbed her by the arm and shoved her hard away from a voting booth when she saw that clerk reaching inside the occupied voting booth with both hands.

Saenz then came back to the podium and told the reporters that the lawsuits being brought against the King Street Patriots were baseless, purposely harassing and a form of intimidation. Saenz emphasized that the poll watchers are all volunteers, not employed by the King Street Patriots and that their training, through the True the Vote initiative, adheres strictly to election law.

Besides calling once again for the DOJ to send officials to investigate the attacks on the poll watchers, Saenz finished up with saying that in the process, the DOJ would also then be able to investigate the actual and clearly illegal electioneering of elected officials inside minority community polling places.