Tea Party Caucus: Mike Pence First Member Michele Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) announced Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is the first member of her House Tea Party Caucus, and she assures all concerned the Caucus will not become "an alternative, conservative voice to the the GOP House leadership." See a video below.

The Tea Party Caucus has its first meeting tomorrow, July 21st. Bachmann said she has been handing out invitations to attend, and the feedback has been positive. She credits U.S. Senate candidate, Rand Paul, Republican from Kentucky for the idea.

From The Daily Caller:

The idea is for the caucus to bring in “real people from various walks of life” to speak to its members about issues resonating within the Tea Party movement. “Usually we invite experts in,” Bachmann said of other caucuses in the House. “Well, these are experts in just being regular Americans,” she said.

Bachmann says the Caucus is a "set of ideas" and the goal is for Americans to know they are being listened to, and to promote less spending and lower taxes - Taxed Enough Already (TEA)

Bachmann says the Caucus is bipartisian and has invited Nancy Pelosi to join...bwwwhaaaahaaaahaaaaa!



Michele Bachmann with Bill Hemmer - Tea Party Caucus (video)
Related and Background:
Ten Buck Friday Blogs Send their Bucks to Michele Bachmann Week 1
About Michele Bachmann - a profile - She is up for election in 2010
Dylan Ratigan Doesn't Like Michele Bachmann or Her Tea Party Caucus
Glenn Beck's Most Conservative in Congress: Beck Picks Bachmann DeMint
Michele Bachman video: No Illegitimate Health Care: Bachmann No Paying Taxes
Sarah Palin Hosts Fundraiser for Michele Bachmann
Michele Bachmann on Mark Levin Video

Mike Pence: Time for this Administration to Stop Bullying Israel

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said he didn't believe he would live to see the day that the U.S. criticized Israel for building in Jerusalem, their Capital. "It's time for this administration to stop bullying Israel," he said. And joining in the criticism was Dylan Ratigan, another MSNBC radical, saying Israel is building housing "in an area that Palestinians want as their capital in a proposed state; these developments are seen as a direct provocation to Palestine."  Palestinians have a better chance of their hell freezing over than Israel giving up Jerusalem. See the video below.

Mike Pence

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. Obama refused the customary photo-op - for the second time since Obama mounted the Oval Office. This ungracious, insolent and calculating behavior by this racist president will not serve him well.

The Muslim mindset is that you abuse, and intimidate, demean and denigrate your enemy, and you make the humiliation as public as possible. That's why Muslim women are stoned and flogged in public. It's why Islam hangs gays and Westerners from cranes and bridges and leaves them for the buzzards. Obama has tried to verbally flog Israel, but Mr. Netanyahu will only go so far. He has reached his limit and his demeanor showed it. Enough is enough. Israel has always done what it must do, and won't take a crap sandwich from the bowing and fawning Obama.

Obama bows to Saudia Arabia

I am embarrassed for Hillary Clinton, who whined that Israel is "exposing daylight between Israel and the U.S. - daylight that others in the area want to expose," she said. Without blinking or thinking our position should always be that there is no daylight between the U.S. and Israel, the only Democracy in the Middle East...our only ally in the Middle East, the only country in the Middle East with civil rights, non-existent in Islamic lands.

Israel is home to some 1+ million Muslims, with voting rights and seats in the Knesset. Arabic along with Hebrew is an official language in Israel. More than 300,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. There are hundreds of Arab schools on Israeli soil. Arabs are free to live anywhere in Israel they choose - by law. Arabs enjoy all the freedoms of the Israeli people, but never have to prove their loyalty by serving in Israel's military. In general, Arabs living in Israel appreciate what the country offers and quality of life is far better in this civilized nation than in Palestine.

There will be no Palestinian state. Palestine will never willingly share any land in the Middle East with Jews, although Israel would, and does, share land with Palestine. The differences between the two peoples are vast. Israel is a nation that builds and grows, produces, educates and contributes. Palestine only produces, but their  product does nothing for mankind. They produce terror, and tunnels to move their terror. They produce hate in their people and then turn the hate into terror. Palestine has never built anything that wasn't paid for with terrorist funding, or by charitable gifts from around the world.

It is far beyond time to think about the lands that should have been Israel's, that are not Israel's and move forward. Let Palestine take what Israel gives them, and they'll get far more than deserved.

Here the Mike Pence video, and I really appreciate his sentiments. Someone must say it. I have several links below on Obama and Israel. They are worth a read.



Rep. Mike Pence: It's Time for this Administration to Stop Bullying Israel (center)

Others Talking about Obama and Israel:

Bare Naked Islam showing a "good old boy" hug from Obama for Palestinian Abbas, a warm two-handed handshake for Muammar Gaddafi, and shoulder slaps for Hugo Chavez. A picture is worth a thousand words. An absent pic - the same, worth a thousand words.

Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs - no press, no photos

Debbie at Right Truth -  Dear Israel...the majority of American citizens support you

Tracy Walters Blog - No photos and day on Capitol Hill with Kerry and Schumer - enough is enough!

War of the Earmarks: House Republicans Ban All Earmarks: Dems Ban Earmarks for For-Profit Companies

There is a war for the most dramatic earmark ban in the U.S. House of Representatives. Who takes the prize: Dems or Republicans? 

Democrats announced a ban on earmarks going to "private companies." Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) announced today that House Republicans are banning all earmarks for the rest of this Congressional year, in an effort to quash "back room deals" to buy votes for health care, including funds to nonprofits, such as universities:

Pence said Democrats were cutting "backroom deals" to persuade reluctant House Democrats to vote for the president's proposal, and said "the American people want us to change business as usual." Source: The Daily Caller

Democrats said their ban "is a key step in restoring trust in Congress. They think we are idiots.

It ensures that for-profit companies no longer reap the rewards of congressional earmarks and limits the influence of lobbyists on members of Congress. 

While the story seems to be that earmark spending has little to do with reducing spending, maybe the real story is what the GOP intimated: quashing back room deals to buy votes for health care. 

Mike Pence Urges Incremental Health Care

In the video below, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) says Democrats are still intent on passing government health care. He calls on the leadership to work with Republicans, and introduce health care reform incrementally.

Rep. Mike Pence Calls for Incremental Health Care (video)

Mike Pence MSNBC Video: Republican Health Care Bill - Mike Pence Video

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) makes the points, aaaaaggggggain, how health care reform can happen without giving the government dictatorial control of our health.

As I watch this video, MSNBC occasionally flips a tag line: "Dems call GOP Bill too little too late." Republican bills have been around from the beginning of the process - meaning the beginning of the Time of Obama. Democrats have refused to even consider them.

House Republican alternative health care bill (summary HERE). Excerpts of the transcript below video.

Please turn the page »

Mike Pence Jay Inslee: Karl Rove Jay Inslee: CBO Baucus Bill Fuzzy Math

Karl Rove, writing for the Wall Street Journal, said that Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf "admitted" that the $500 billion in tax hikes in the Baucus bill would be passed onto consumers, pushing up insurance premiums. This is how the Obama government plans to make health care more affordable - for the government, not for you. Before you dismiss this, remember that Rove is talking about a Senate hearing. Not likely he is making this up. Put away your partisan divide and your hate of Rove and examine the details. Setting the scene for the video below:

 (1) We know that under the Democrat's health care reform, we can keep our private insurance. We can keep it according to the original House Bill, only because it is "grandfathered in," meaning that you keep it because you already had it. Page 16, Sec. 102. The word "grandfathered in" is actual wording.

(2) We know that if you have private insurance and change jobs, and your new employer provides health care coverage, you are not eligible, because you were not "grandfathered in." You get the government option.

(3) We know that if you do not have private insurance at the time the bill is enacted, you never again have the option for private coverage. You get the government option.

(4) We know that companies will be assessed a tax of 8 percent of workers' wages, if the company does not provide health care insurance for workers.

(5) We know that a tax of 8 percent of company payroll is less than the cost of providing health care for most employers. "In 2005, the median employer cost was 11 percent of payroll."

(6) We know that the company will drop the private plan pronto.

(7) We know that individuals who decline an offer of affordable coverage will pay 2.5 percent of their incomes as a penalty, up to the average cost of a health insurance plan.

(8) We know that once the company drops the private plan, we have no more options for private insurance. The Obama government is not giving us the option for private insurance any way or any how. We know that we have joined the government of Barack Obama, if we want health insurance.

(9) Finally, we know that private health care will no longer be available to the majority of Americans, with the exception of Congress, Congressional retirees, Union retirees and their families, and perhaps community organizers described in the original bill as "voluntary beneficiaries" (page 65).

None of the above is surprising, because it is all well-documented. It has been put into writing in the House bill. We do not know what is in the Baucus bill because only the "idea" or "concept" has been submitted for the CBO's scoring of the bill. But we know the goal that Democrats are stumbling toward.

So the scene is set. Karl Rove writing in the Wall Street Journal:

The problem for Mr. Obama is that the Baucus bill is being sold on the strength of accounting tricks that make it appear that it won't add to the deficit.

The bill imposes tax hikes and benefit cuts right away, including $121 billion of Medicare reductions between 2011 and 2015. [snip] 

Then there are $400 billion in benefit cuts that are frightening seniors. Jeffrey H. Anderson of the Pacific Research Institute has pointed out that the Baucus bill cuts Medicare payments to physicians by 25% within two years and keeps payments at that level forever, without adjusting for inflation. If this becomes law, doctors who take Medicare patients will see their real income decline each year.

Didn't we think we would have 3 years before any reform kicked-in? If the plan is not to take effect for 3 years, that would be assumption, but no, the reform begins immediately and the reform is not a bonus, but a penalty if we are on Medicare or are a physician.

The following is very surprising to me, because I am not devious enough to begin to think that the CBO would possibly accept this:

...the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report last week claiming the bill won't add to the deficit. But this assumes that employers who dump employee coverage under the Baucus bill will then increase worker paychecks by an amount equal to what they had spent on health care. This replaces a nontaxable event (providing health insurance) with a taxable one (increasing worker paychecks), magically producing $83 billion in revenues. Without this windfall, the Baucus bill adds billions of dollars to the federal deficit in the first decade.

About the taxes to be levied against the employer who finds it cheaper to drop your insurance and pay the fines:

Of course, why would a company drop employee coverage just so it could pay more (in fines, taxes and wages) than it did before?

The CBO report also estimates that receipts from the 40% excise tax the Baucus bill would levy on "Cadillac" insurance policies "would grow by roughly 10 percent to 15 percent" a year after 2019.

That's nonsense. If you tax something heavily you'll get less of it. If this tax is enacted, there will be fewer Cadillac plans—and hence less revenue.

In the video below, you will hear Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) ignore the point that money will be saved due to employer's increasing employee wages after dropping private health care. He has nothing to offer other than his dislike for Karl Rove and the tired old lie that Republicans have no plan (a complete lie as there are many plans offered and rejected by Democrats). Inslee insists that there will be a "very, very small number of employers" who will drop coverage. Incredible! Martha McCallum gets it.  Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) at 4:14 minutes into the video, says the idea that employers will raise wages is "not really credible," and you'll see that Inslee does not make his case.




 Pence, Inslee, Rove on Baucus Bill Fuzzy Math (video)