Puerto Rico Becoming our 51st Star?

WASHINGTON: Last Thursday was like any other recent Thursday in Washington, Congress was up to no good. In case you missed it the House voted in favor of HR 2499, a stealth resolution to help the Democrats cement their power in Congress. It purportedly gave Puerto Rico the right to petition for statehood, a right they already had. Puerto Ricans have exercised that right twice already. They have held two public referendums which both declined statehood.

HR 2499′s real purpose was to force statehood onto the territory in order to give 2 more Senate seats and 6 more House seats to the Democrats. Regular readers of the NIP are already well informed. Jim Simpson laid out the details in an excellent analysis in his column on Thursday. We understand that many of our Congressmen have trouble with reading comprehension, that’s why they don’t read the bills. With them in mind we put up Glenn Beck’s video tutorial on the subject. Apparently too many Congressmen still didn’t understand what is at stake because the bill passed on Thursday.

We of course expected the Democrats to vote in lockstep for this power grab, but we were surprised that it was the Republicans who put it over the top. Without support from 39 Republicans this bill was doomed. Read more…

Dangerous Tea Partiers Foiled by SWAT Police

QUINCY, IL: Yesterday Obama called out the SWAT team to deal with those pesky Tea Party protestors. It is clear why Dear Leader has called for the creation of a national police force. These ladies obviously are trouble makers.

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.  (Obama on video here)

Obama can harass Tea Partiers, but God forbid anyone mess with Democratic Hispanics in Arizona. More photos of these dangerous astroturfers can be found at Jim Hoft’s column at BigGovernment.com.

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WASHINGTON: A vote on HR 2499 is scheduled for today. This bill will eventually force Puerto Rico into statehood, giving Democrats 2 new senators and 6 or 7 new representatives. Glenn Beck explains the danger in this video from yesterday’s show. For an in-depth analysis of this issue, read today’s column by Jim Simpson. Call your representative today and protest. We need to flood their switchboards.

JAMES SIMPSON: Apparently there is to be a vote later today on a bill regarding Puerto Rican statehood. They are calling it “non-binding” but it is not non-binding! It is a trap. The bill makes eventual Puerto Rican statehood a virtual certainty. This is despite the fact that statehood has been voted down repeatedly.The Puerto Rican people don’t want it!

But since when has that stopped the Left from ramming what they want down people’s throats? And why do they want it? The same reason they want everything, to further entrench their power. Statehood would mean two new senators, six or seven new representatives, and a whole slew of new voters. As Examiner.com’s Robert Moon points out:

Due to its dense population of poverty-stricken minorities, Puerto Rico can be counted on to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats and all their handouts, and their representation will also consequently outnumber that of 25 other existing U.S. states.

Meanwhile, with Puerto Ricans having an average income of less than half that of our poorest state, they will instantly become eligible for dozens of our welfare programs. Truckloads of taxpayer dollars will also have to be perpetually dumped into the territory, by federal law, to bring it up to American infrastructure and environmental standards.

Oh, and never mind us. We don’t get a say in this either. Puerto Rico, which doesn’t want statehood, is being forced to vote, while we American citizens, who have a vested interest in the outcome, will not be given the opportunity to vote! Simply incredible!

HR 2499, titled “A Bill, to provide for a federally sanctioned self-determination process for the people of Puerto Rico” follows a very devious, underhanded multi-step path to essentially force Puerto Rican voters to eventually adopt statehood. Here’s how. The bill first authorizes Puerto Rico to hold a vote where they are given the following two choices only: Read more…

ERIC CHESLEY: The country is at a crossroads and it’s time to make a choice. Choice A is that we grant the federal government greater power to control financial institutions in the hope that the feds posses the clairvoyance to see a meltdown coming and take appropriate action to prevent a crisis. Choice B is that we demand that the federal government restrain itself and allow financial companies that are “too big to fail” to do just that, fail. In the short term the choice appears simple, if failure can be prevented, why not do something about it? That’s the position Sen. Chris Dodd has taken with his financial reform bill “Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010.”

There seems to be bipartisan agreement that financial reform is needed, but Sen. Dodd’s attempt at reform misses the mark. Sen. Dodd’s bill includes a $50 billion bailout fund for big Wall Street firms, awarding some of those who created the problem in the first place. It creates yet another bureaucracy, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would duplicate existing regulatory agencies. And the bill puts a restriction on derivatives that are blamed for last year’s financial crisis, and, as a result of restricting derivatives, U.S. companies probably will seek foreign investment opportunities and moving capital outside of the U.S. But the most worrisome provision of the bill is found in Subtitle B Section 151-156 that creates the Office of Financial Research.

On its face, the new entity sounds rather benign. What is the threat of a federal agency doing a little financial research? The threat lies in the fact that this new office will have the authority to dig into any financial transaction that they like.

Karl Rove shed some light on this proposed agency while appearing on Fox news. He points out that the bill creates a super-regulatory agency with too much power:

It creates a new office and gives it a half a billion dollars a year and a huge start-up for computer systems in order to monitor every financial transaction in the United States and to use that data to arrive at policy recommendations about sensible regulation.

So they’re literally going to have the capacity to go through everybody’s brokerage account and everybody’s checking account and everybody’s credit card and everybody’s financial transactions and collect – sweep that information and then analyze it. Karl Rove, Fox News

Read more…

JAMES SIMPSON: South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is perhaps the most irritating personification of the RINO label in the U.S. Senate. Despite the overwhelming evidence against manmade global warming and the irrefutable damage Cap and Trade legislation will do to our tottering economy, Graham has teamed with leftist Senator John Kerry to resurrect that legislation we all thought was going nowhere. Kerry himself recently noted that the recession has reduced greenhouse gas pollution by 6 percent. He wants to see another 14 percent reduction by 2020. Not one given to heavy intellectual lifting, we’ll assume Kerry overlooked the implications of that statement. But others have been explicit, suggesting a controlled recession is what’s needed to achieve that result.

Controlled recession! These people are lunatics defined.

But why would any Republican in his right mind join in with this lunacy? Apparently Graham is looking for more. Now, he has gone out on a limb again to join with Democrats in an attempt to resurrect illegal immigrant amnesty again. There is no doubt where the American people stand on amnesty. This is one of the most unpopular issues in the country, and it is hard to square the notion of a decorated JAG lawyer getting behind a movement that so clearly undermines the rule of law.

We all know why the Democrats’ want amnesty. It is the most promising of their many, despicable, underhanded, self-serving plans to pack voter roles with reliable democrat voters, constitution, rule of law, and the will of the people be damned. But why would Graham be willing to so blatantly stab his Party in the back, especially when the crucial midterm elections appear to be turning in the GOP’s favor?

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) President William Gheen explains why in the following video.

Read more of Jim Simpson’s analysis here…

WASHINGTON, DC: Armed police pushed the press away from a gay rights protest at the White House earlier today. Protestors in full service uniforms chained themselves to the White House gate protesting the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy of the armed forces. Closing Lafayette Park and chasing the press out is one more way the Obama administration is trying to limit freedom of the press. Reporters in the video below are heard to call the unprecedented police action as “ridiculous” and “outrageous.” We’d call it illegal. What is it about this protest you don’t want us to see, Mr. President?