News Digest

Defiance, the Texas Way

Governor (and hopefully GOP presidential candidate) Rick Perry and the state legislature have been making news with their defiance of the collectivist federal government by openly opposing two federal law/regulations.

First, the legislature just passed a bill that would allow Texans to skirt federal efforts to promote more efficient light bulbs, which ultimately pushes the swirled, compact fluorescent bulbs over the 100-watt incandescent bulbs many grew up with. The measure, sent to Gov. Rick Perry for consideration, lets any incandescent light bulb manufactured in Texas - and sold in that state - avoid the authority of the federal government or the repeal of the 2007 energy independence act that starts phasing out some incandescent light bulbs next year."

Second, Texas Attorney General, along with six other states, is legally challenging EPA's unlawful and unconstitutional green house gas regulations.  The rules under the Federal Clean Air Act were meant to regulate toxic substances - not carbon dioxide, which we all exhale and is not toxic.
 
Along with Arizona governor Brewer and several other southern governors' challenges to the federal domain of the immigration laws, we can only hope that these are the collective shots heard around the world against run-away tyrannical federal abuse of power.
 
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Shhhhh....
 
Some like to milk the system, like millionaire Leroy Fick, while others like James Verone have to resort to extreme measures to recieve basic medical treatment - well sort of, that is if you believe the media whores of the Obama regime.
 
In another display of disingenuous media coverage aimed at painting the still-unpopular Obamacare as a sorely needed reform, major news outlets simply neglected to inform their readers that Mr. Verone had all sorts of options available to him, including UNC and another hospital near his home, both of which have stated goals of treating patients regardless of their ability to pay, along with state and federal programs. 
 
Here is the dirty little secret the left does not want you to know: last year hospitals provided $34 billion in unpaid care in the U.S. and $694 million in North Carolina alone - much of it voluntarily. 
Shhhhh.....
 
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Finally some awakening on the left....
 
Are some on the left, like the NYT Business Editor Gretchen Morgenson, finally coming around to admitting the federal regulators'/government's role in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles? 
 
"Reckless Endangerment" by Morgenson - a stounch critic of Wall Street - examines the corrupt relationship between the two GSEs and politicians.  In the book, Morgenson recognizes the formerly ignored real villains like ex-Fannie chairman Jim Johnson, one of many Clinton cronies who helped set the stage for the financial disaster back in the 1990s.  She also goes in to how Johnson's succesor, Franklin Raines. encouraged the zero down payment schemes as well as more subprime mortgages.  Read more about it here.
 
Finally an influential progressive comprehends the bitter fruit of government social engineering and crony capitalism - what I and millions of other reasonable observers have been saying for the past several years!

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How to bury a scandal "fast and furious"
 
Get the bus ready to run over the latest victim: Acting Director of ATF Kenneth Melson who apparently will be the scapegoat in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. 
 
If a federal agency, willingly allowing the exportation of assault weapons to notoriously violent Mexican drug cartels in an attempted sting, loses track of the weapons, some of which turn up in the murder scene of a U.S. Border agent, is not the height of government ineptness, I do not know what would be.

Moreover, if anyone thinks that such a risky operation with potentially far reaching implications does not get communicated to the big boss - Eric Holder - they must be smoking some funny stuff.
On the other hand, would any of you dismiss the idea that this was all planned so the Obama Administration could build public support for their war on second amendment?

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To be continued.....