U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs

The threat of shutting down free speech is growing, as in a recent report on Torrent Freak, under the guise of 'mis-use':

Indeed, 73,000 blogs is a significant number to take down in one swoop, regardless of what some users of the site may or may not have been doing. Time will tell if it was indeed a copyright complaint that took down the service but the signs are certainly there. Not so long ago the conclusion that this type of action could be taken on copyright grounds would have been dismissed out of hand, but the current atmosphere seems to be changing.

This is just the beginning of Big Government's "boot on the neck of" free speech, and the fear is more sites, along with talk radio, will soon be in their crosshairs.  The timing couldn't be more obvious in light of the upcoming November 2010 [and 2012] elections.  But, Americans are ever vigilant and more involved than ever before.  Election Day is 108 days away, and we have a choice to make.

Not that any of us fell for his garbage, but this is one of the most moving and motivating videos, and apparently the libs are trying to drive it off the "free press", aka You Tube:

Hap tip Power Line, via Mark Levin

America Rising: An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians

OBAMA'S TRUE COSTS COMING TO LIGHT

The more time we have to truly examine the Health Care Reform Bill, the worse it gets, which is why so many Americans were up in arms about it. Just as in Obama's election, we knew the truth, but the lies were well hidden. The hope is this bill can be repealed, but the truth needs to be exposed on its dangers.

For decades universal healthcare has been a dream of liberals, and now they have it. There is so much about this government takeover of our health system that is wrong, and as Ronald Reagan warned us,

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.

The Heritage Foundation writes more exposing data on the Health Care Reform Bill, and it only shows to go ya how many lies we were told. This information will be critical in order to keep up the pressure, because if we don't do it now, government run health care will run our lives. These exposures are why the repeal effort continues to grow.

Under the guise of liberalism, America is adopting and accepting socialism. Or are we? It's up to the voters come November 2010.

Obamacare's True Costs Coming to Light
The Heritage Foundation, June 2, 2010

Remember how President Barack Obama promised that his health care plan would reduce the deficit and put us on a path towards fiscal responsibility? Remember how Congress kept gaming the system to come up with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score that could justify those claims? Well, now that Obamacare has become (hopefully only temporarily) the law of the land, the CBO is singing a slightly different tune. Last Friday CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote on his blog:

The central challenge is straightforward and stark: The rising costs of health care will put tremendous pressure on the federal budget during the next few decades and beyond.

In CBO’s judgment, the health legislation enacted earlier this year does not substantially diminish that pressure. In fact, CBO estimated that the health legislation will increase the federal budgetary commitment to health care (which CBO defines as the sum of net federal outlays for health programs and tax preferences for health care) by nearly $400 billion during the 2010-2019 period. Looking further ahead, CBO estimated that the legislation would reduce the federal budgetary commitment to health care in the following decade—if the provisions of the legislation remain unchanged throughout that entire period.

And there is ample evidence that the CBO may be underestimating Obamacare's true costs. Ethics and Public Policy Center Fellow James Capretta details:

Omission of the Medicare "Doc Fix." The Obama Administration and leaders in Congress chose to use all of the tax hikes and spending cuts they could find to create another new entitlement instead of paying for a fix for Medicare physician fees (the so-called “doc fix”). Under current law, those fees are set to get cut by 21 percent in June. The Obama Administration wants to undo the cut permanently, but it does not provide any offsetting savings. The result will be a spending increase of between $250 billion and $400 billion over a decade. Passing an unfinanced “doc fix” wipes out all of the supposed savings from the new legislation and greatly adds to the burden on future taxpayers.

The CLASS Act Gimmick. The new health law creates a voluntary long-term care insurance program, called the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. Those who sign up for it must pay premiums for five years before becoming eligible for benefit payments. Consequently, premiums paid by enrollees build a small surplus—about $70 billion over 10 years according to CBO—which the health law’s proponents claim as deficit reduction. But these premiums will be needed in short order to pay actual claims.

Medicare Cuts. CBO and the Chief Actuary for the Medicare program have both stated that Medicare spending cuts cannot be counted twice—to pay for a new entitlement expansion and to claim that Medicare’s financial outlook has improved. But that is exactly what the proponents of the new legislation do. If the Medicare cuts and tax hikes for the hospital trust fund (about $400 billion over 10 years, according to CBO) are used solely to improve the capacity of the government to pay future Medicare claims, then the health law becomes a massive exercise in deficit spending.

Estimates of Employees Dropped from Job-Based Coverage. The new insurance arrangements in the state-based exchanges will provide massive new subsidies to low- and moderate-wage households. For instance, at 200 percent FPL, the subsidy for a family of four will reach nearly $11,000 in 2014. But CBO estimates that only 3 million Americans will move from job-based insurance into the exchanges to take advantage of the subsidies, even though there are about 130 million Americans under age 65 with incomes between 100 and 400 percent FPL. Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Cameron Smith of the American Action Forum have estimated that as many as 35 million people will be moved out of job-based coverage and into subsidization. If that is the case, the 10-year cost of the coverage expansion provisions would jump by $400 billion more.

According to one recent estimate, Obamacare will add more than $500 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years and $1.5 trillion in the decade following. No wonder support for the repeal of Obamacare continues to grow.

THE FATAL FLAWS OF THE WALL STREET BAILOUT BILL

Nobody plays the strawman game better than Barack Hussein Obama. We've had a bellyful of his strawman speeches since he began campaigning, and he has ebellished this speechification since his inauguration. This week we was at his finest, using Wall Street and big businesses as his current target, and all the while they're sharing the same bed, along with the news media as their cover.

This is just another big government giveaway to big business, Wall Street included, while the people who play by the rules get screwed -- again. Opposition to another huge government takeover of the private sector needs to be voiced loud and strong, or we are looking at a peridime shift of Americans who work hard and pay more than their fair share of taxes versus Americans who receive and depend on government handouts. This is explained by the eloquent Phyllis Schlafly's brilliant piece "Some Pay, and Some Recieve" in her Eagle Forum. She's such a wealth of knowledge, and an inspiration.

Tom Fitton writes in Judicial Watch, Beware Obama Financial "Reform":

Here’s one early lesson we’ve learned from the Obama administration: Beware the word “reform.” First there was Obamacare, which was nothing more than a government takeover of our nation’s health care system masquerading as “reform.” And now the Obama administration has set its sights on “reforming” Wall Street. In fact, on Thursday, the President took to the pulpit in New York, just blocks from Wall Street, to pitch his vision for so-called reform in a high profile speech.

No matter what Obama says, this much we know — his ultimate goal is to increase government control of the private sector. And he’s trying to do it quickly, before the elections this fall, just in case Democrats lose control of Congress and the mood in Washington further sours for the President and his statist agenda.

But, back to the hypocrisy -- this man, once again, is attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the American people, as he pontificates about the big bad Wall Street, lobbyists, and big businesses with one hand, while the other hand is about to grab himself more power than the Constitution ever intended. Liberty or Tyranny -- which one will reign?

The Heritage Foundation writes an excellent piece on the continuation of Bailout Bonanza:

The Fatal Flaws of the Wall Street Bailout Bill
The Heritage Foundation, April 23, 2010

Speaking to an audience of big business and big labor executives (including Goldman Sachs' Lloyd Blankfein, Bank of America's Bruce Thompson and SEIU's Andy Stern) at New York's Cooper Union, President Barack Obama noted "the furious efforts of industry lobbyists to shape" the financial regulation bill "to their special interests." Obama then admitted, "I am sure that many of those lobbyists work for some of you. But I am here today because I want to urge you to join us, instead of fighting us in this effort." Obama should have saved his breath. Wall Street and big labor lobbyists have already joined forces to make sure the current Senate legislation has become a Wall Street Bailout Bill.

Big labor's ties to this White House are already well documented. Less known is just how close Obama administration interests align with the big firms that benefit most from the TARP bailout. The Washington Examiner reports that at Goldman Sachs, the nation's largest investment bank, four of the five in-house lobbyists were Democratic Capitol Hill staffers -- the remaining one gave $1,000 to Hillary Clinton last election. And USA Today notes that Goldman Sachs alone has given nearly $900,000 since January 2009 to congressional candidates, with 69% of that cash lining Democrat pockets. Finally, then-candidate Obama collected almost $1 million from Goldman executives and employees in 2008, more than the combined Goldman haul of every Republican running for president, Senate and the House.

So what have Wall Street lobbyists bought with their campaign cash and high priced lobbyists? A bill that gives permanent TARP-like authority to Washington regulators, thus enshrining Washington as a permanent bailout machine. Specifically, the bill:

Creates a protected class of too big to fail firms. Section 113 of the bill establishes a "Financial Stability Oversight Council," charged with identifying firms that would "pose a threat to the financial security of the United States" if they encounter "material financial distress." While these firms would be subject to enhanced regulation, such a designation would also signal to the marketplace that these firms are too important to be allowed to fail and, perversely, allow them to take on undue risk.

Creates permanent bailout authority. Section 204 of the bill authorizes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to "make available … funds for the orderly liquidation of [a] covered financial institution." Although no funds could be provided to compensate a firm's shareholders, the firm's other creditors would be eligible for a cash bailout. The situation is much like the bailout AIG in 2008, in which the largest beneficiaries were not stockholders but rather other creditors, such as Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

Provides for seizure of private property without meaningful judicial review. The bill, in Section 203(b), authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to order the seizure of any financial firm that he finds is "in danger of default" and whose failure would have "serious adverse effects on financial stability." This determination would be virtually irreversible in court.

Establishes a $50 billion fund to pay for bailouts. Funding for bailouts is to come from a $50 billion "Orderly Resolution Fund" created within the U.S. Treasury in Section 210(n)(1), funded by taxes on financial firms. However, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the ultimate cost of bank taxes will fall on the customers, employees and investors of each firm.

Opens a "line of credit" to the Treasury for additional government funding. Under Section 210(n)(9), the FDIC is effectively granted a line of credit to the Treasury Department that is secured by the value of failing firms in its control, providing another taxpayer financial support.

Authorizes regulators to guarantee the debt of solvent banks. Bailout authority is not limited to debt of failing institutions. Under Section 1155, the FDIC is authorized to guarantee the debt of "solvent depository institutions" if regulators declare that a liquidity crisis ("event") exists.

Imposes one-size-fits-all reform in derivative markets. Derivatives are already increasingly being traded on clearinghouses thanks to private efforts coordinated by the New York Fed. But the Senate bill would require virtually all derivative contracts to be settled through a clearinghouse rather than directly between the parties. Applying such ill-designed blanket regulation would make financial derivatives more costly, more difficult to customize, and, consequently, less widely used—which would increase overall risk in the economy.

According to Rasmussen Reports, 64% of Americans are not confident that policymakers in Washington know what they're doing with regards to Wall Street. They have every reason to be concerned. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) tells National Review: "From the beginning, I've thought that the deal Goldman Sachs got via Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on their bad bets through AIG kind of stunk. They got $13 billion from AIG last year." DeFazio doesn't seem to realize that the bill Obama is pushing would empower Secretary Geithner to repeat the AIG bailout ad infinitum. No need to ever go back to Congress for a new TARP. The Senate bill is a permanent TARP. Which is exactly what Goldman Sachs and the rest of their Wall Street lobbyists wanted all along.