Happy Thanksgiving and Farm Relief & Freedom Relay Recap

From the TPP's national leadership team....

Dear Fellow Tea Party Patriots,

Tea Party Patriots had our final stop in the Farmer Relief and Freedom Relay in Fresno, California. We had roughly 33 stops in 2 weeks around the country.

During these stops we raised awareness about the Copenhagen Climate Summit, the Cap and Trade vote in the Senate, and the water issues in the Central Valley of California. Besides only raising awareness, we also raised donations for the Farmers on Central Valley. We raised approximately $15,000 in cash donations to Saving the Valley, hundreds more in gift cards, and truckloads of canned foods and clothing.

You can click to watch a video recap of Sunday's closing event. We will have more links added to our website next week.

As you watch this video, realize what a difference you are making. You have made a difference in the lives of these farmers. You have made a difference to the local coordinators in California who have felt alone in their struggle. You have made a difference in lives of others around the country as they have seen how united we will work together to further our core values.

As the Relay was ending, we began to learn about the climate change cover-up. We are learning more and more that this is another tactic to increase taxes and take more control our lives. Senators are beginning to call for a Congressional nvestigation into this scandal. Watch for action alerts in coming weeks as we continue to work together to ask Congress to vote no on Cap and Trade and to turn the water in California back on.

Health Care will heat up again next week in the Senate.

The National Coordinator Team is working with Local Coordinators from around the country on what our next actions will be. We know Congress can hear us now but they are choosing not to listen. So, we are thinking outside the box. We have taken into account many of the ideas you have given us in the past few weeks. Watch for action alerts in coming days about what we are doing next.

As Thanksgiving draws near, we want to thank each and everyone of you for standing shoulder to shoulder with Americans from around the country to make our voices heard! You are the heart and soul of the tea party movement. As we give thanks tomorrow, the National Coordinators will be thankful to each of you for joining this movement and working to protect the future of our country. Thank you!!

You are the heart and soul of the Tea Party Movement. Thank you for promoting the causes of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets with us!

Your Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Team,

Debbie Dooley, Mike Gaske, Kellen Giuda, Ryan Hecker, Jenny Beth Martin, Mark Meckler, Sally Oljar, Diana Reimer, Billie Tucker, and Dawn Wildman

"Thank You America" Rally

Here is a clip from the "Thank You America" Rally held on November 22, 2009 in Fresno, CA and hosted by the Central Valley Tea Party Patriots group.

The "Thank You America" Rally Caravans traveled across the United States collecting food, clothing, gift cards and monetary donations for the Farmers and Farm Workers of California's Central Valley as part of the Tea Party Patriots "Farm Relief & Freedom Relay."

Central Valley Farmers and Farm Workers continue to be devastated by the regulatory water shortage that has caused thousands of acres of farmlands to lie fallow and hundreds of Californians out of work.

Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator on Cavuto today

Mark Meckler (One of our National Coordinators for the Tea Party Patriots) will be on Neil Cavuto's TV show today (1pm - 2pm on FOX) discussing efforts to REPEAL AB32!

AB32 is the most far-reaching, intrusive piece of legislation that will absolutely DESTROY our already suffering economy once it is fully implemented, in addition to telling us where to live, what to eat and what to drive.

You can click here for the Face Book link of -- Stop AB 32! Defeat California's job-killing global warming law! Go there sign up and sign the petition.

If you haven't already make sure you go to the National Tea Party Patriots (www.teapartypatriots.org) site where you can sign up, create a profile and track all the calls, faxes, emails you have made. Plus you can join the TPP Google Groups, follow the TPP Blogs and a whole bunch of other fun and informative Tea Party Patriot stuff.

My reality: Big Government vs. Small Business

A couple of months ago I went back to work. Not the kind of work from home work, but physically being a presence in the business my husband and I started 13 years ago. Our years of dedication in its early years afforded me the ability to stay at home once we had kids. But now the honeymoon was clearly over. The economy is on life-support, and we knew we had to audit every facet of our business to make it profitable again.

When a small group of us started the Cleveland Tea Party, I knew that taxes and big government were out of control. That's what fueled me. I knew government had become a beast you don’t tangle with. I’ve seen how suffocating they can become to a small business. When we had a business in another state, I watched that state come in, tear apart my conference room, audit me, threaten me, and scare the crap out of me. The scary man said we owed them over 300K. He wanted us so sign a note saying so and set up payment arrangements. Two phone calls to my attorney ended it right there, and we proved that we had done everything legal, and guess what? We owed them nothing. Nada, Zero, Zip. But that day I learned about the power of big government. By damn they wanted to show me who was boss, and I’m afraid at that, they succeeded.

So after examining every aspect of our business, why am I so surprised that the number one headache I have right now is the government? I think seeing it all sitting there, all the paperwork, tax bills, tax notice increases, and licensing fees has had a way of waking me up from my Mommy coma. The melody of “The Sound of Music” is no longer playing in my head. Now it’s more like the chorus of “I will survive”. It simply gets overwhelming.

I’d love for some liberal to come to my office so I can show them what it takes to “comply” with our Great state of Ohio. How insane the accounting is when you sell products in different counties and the sales tax rates are all different. How much work it takes to “comply” with Ohio BWC. Or, let me show you how our city business income tax just doubled. How about my bill for my corporate accountant that is enormous because the tax laws are enormous. Yesterday I got a notice from the city informing me that the withholding rates were going up and to notify my payroll company. Today I got a notice from Unemployment that those rates are going up. While we’re trying to keep our doors open, I now must pay an increase to cover the multitudes that couldn’t. Then there’s the child support enforcement paperwork that comes through weekly that says I must collect from my subcontractors and forward to the state. And this wouldn’t be complete without giving a “shout out” to payroll taxes. Until you see an amount every week get automatically withdrawn from your checking account to cover the payroll taxes, you just can’t get it.

And just when you think this blog couldn’t get any more depressing, I must tell you about Total Merchant Services in Colorado. They have been one of our merchants for Visa/MasterCard processing. Everything is fine, we process a transaction, and the money shows up in our account in a couple days. Well, on Friday, an $8000.00 deposit was supposed to be there. I was told it was a “glitch” and it would be in my bank on Monday. On Monday I’m informed that they are reviewing us for fraud. After I picked myself off the floor I promptly faxed over the customer contracts with signatures figuring that would be the end of it. Not so fast. Now they admit that no “fraud” is occurring but because we did too much business with them in a week, they will hold the money for 60 days and then review us again to see if we’re worthy to have our own money. And yes folks, this is legal. In fact, I’ve been informed that they can hold any businesses credit card funds for up to 6 months if you sneeze wrong. I suppose this is what happens when the banks and the government are in bed together. They can and will do whatever, whenever they choose. Some quick googling tells me that this practice with merchants is becoming quite common. They call it “stepping out of the parameters of your contract”. Meaning, that if you estimate to them initially that you’ll do 35K a month with them and you have the audacity to give them more business, you’ve stepped out of the parameters of the contract.
Think about it, if you’re a bank you can collect money for a client, charge them a fee to do so and then decide you’re going to keep it for a while and sorry about your luck. And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Last night I was warned that if I continued to argue with them on this matter they would put me on a “list” that would prohibit me from being able to process credit cards for 7 years. Why? Because I had the audacity to question them, that’s why.

Big government IS against small business. You can’t be for something while your force our heads under water. And every day, it gets harder and harder to come up for air. That, my friends, is the reality of small business these days. While our president pardons turkeys and throws lavish parties for Hollywood, while our Congress keeps getting fatter, Main Street cries out for help.. Problem is, nobody is listening.

The more big government strangles small business, the freedom of owning a business is eroded. My family is filled with small business owners, and is one reason that motivated us to join our musical forces, and write and record the album “Freedom”. It’s a story in and of itself. Soon I’ll blog about how my dad and I wrote “Give it to me Nation”. And I’ll tell you the true story about the day I wrote the song “Freedom” and the slippery lawmaker who inspired me to write it.
Listen here...

Lieberman: "Nobody thinks that this Bill will Pass"

Talkin' Turkey about Health Care

Below are some great points about the Senate version of the health care bill put out by Take Back Medicine.

Click here for the one page PDF handout that you can hand out to relatives and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday.

From Take Back Medicine --

SENATE HEALTH CARE BILLS ARE THE REAL TURKEYS THIS THANKSGIVING

Reid’s Senate version of ObamaCare calls for:

• Hiding the $1.8 Trillion price tag by not accounting for actual costs.

• Major reductions in Medicare benefits to seniors.

• Major Tax Increases on every American to pay for it all.

• Reid called for increasing the Medicare payroll tax.

THE AAPS SURVEYS SHOWS THAT 70% OF DOCTORS WOULD REFUSE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PUBLIC PLAN IN THIS BILL

“TALKING TURKEY” (Courtesy: www.PatientsFirst.com)

1. Harry Reid has had his bill for 6 weeks – shouldn’t the American people have the same time period to review it and know what the bill contains? After all, 2,074 pages isn’t exactly light reading.

2. Some treatments could be deemed unnecessary – A government task force recently declared that mammograms for women younger than 50 were not recommended. The Health and Human Services Secretary quickly backed away from her task force’s declaration, but under these bills unaccountable bureaucracies would have vast new powers to coerce doctors to follow their recommendations.

3. Young people would be required to pay higher premiums – A study by actuarial firm Oliver Wyman found the restrictive new insurance regulations in both the House and Senate bills would increase premiums for young people by 69 percent.

4. Everyone would be forced to purchase costly plans – Requiring everyone to purchase expensive health care plans with high premiums – and not allowing people to choose affordable options that meet their budgets and needs – would mean lower-cost high-deductible plans would no longer be available.

5. Loads of new taxes – Nonpartisan experts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have concluded that new excise taxes on medical devices would be passed on to patients, increasing insurance premiums and increasing prices on everything from wheelchairs to pacemakers. The tax increases in the Senate bill add up to almost $500 billion.

6. Expands Medicaid and shifts costs – The Senate bill would force 15 million Americans into the flawed Medicaid program, which 4 in 10 doctors won’t accept because the program underpays providers. Studies show that expanding the program directly increases costs for everyone else, since doctors and hospitals must make up for their losses under Medicaid by shifting costs to other patients.

7. Taxes “Cadillac” and union plans – The new 40 percent tax on high-end “Cadillac” health insurance plans (any plan over $8,500 for an individual or $23,000 for a family) would force companies to shift costs to employees or to reduce the value of the health benefits they provide.

8. Government-forced health care mandates on employers would require employers to pay up to 8% higher payroll taxes in the House bill and $750 per employee in the Senate bill. This will result in lower pay and job losses, especially for low-income workers.

9. Medicare benefits would be slashed by over $400 billion, reducing benefits for seniors and jeopardizing access to care for millions of others. If these cuts do not materialize, then the bills will dramatically increase deficits.

10. Millions will still be uninsured. Even though the whole health care system will be turned upside-down, the CBO says at the end of 10 years there will still be 24 million uninsured Americans under the Senate bill.

SENATE DEMOCRATS BILL “BY THE NUMBERS”
From Sen. Tom Coburn, MD (OK)

0 — provisions guaranteeing taxpayers do not finance abortion
0 — provisions prohibiting the rationing of health care
0 — number of senators required to enroll in the new government-run plan
8 — number of new taxes created in the bill, according to JCT analysis
13 — pages in the bill’s table of contents
20.8 – pounds the bill weighs printed out
36 — pages in the CBO estimate of the price tag
70 — government programs authorized by the bill
1,697 — times the Secy. of HHS is given authority to create, determine, or define things in the bill
2,074 — pages in the bill

3,607 — uses of the word "shall" in the bill
$6.8 million — cost to taxpayers per word
24 million — people left without health insurance
$1.2 billion — cost to taxpayers per page
$5-$10 billion — additional funding needed for the IRS to implement the bill
$8 billion —taxes levied on uninsured individuals
$25 billion —additional Medicaid mandates placed on states
$28 billion —new taxes on employers not providing government approved plans
$100 billion — estimated annual fraud in Medicare and Medicaid $118 billion —cuts to Medicare Advantage
$465 billion — total cuts to Medicare
$494 billion — revenue from new taxes/fees levied on American families and businesses
$2.5 trillion — cost for full implementation of the legislation
$12 trillion — total U.S. national debt

What is Cloture?

We want to thank Amy & Jeff of the Medina Tea Party Patriots for forwarding over the link for the website Take Back Medicine.

A Dr. David Lowther sent this email into www.takebackmedicine.com --

What is Cloture?

According to this Reference:

"By 1915 (under President Woodrow Wilson), the Senate had become a breeding ground for filibusters. In the final weeks of the Congress that ended on March 4, one administration measure related to the war in Europe tied the Senate up for 33 days and blocked passage of 3 major appropriations bills. Two years later, as pressure increased for American entry into that war, a 23-day, end-of-session filibuster against the president's proposal to arm merchant ships also failed, taking with it much other essential legislation.

For the previous 40 years, efforts in the Senate to pass a debate-limiting rule had come to nothing. Now, in the wartime crisis environment, President Wilson lost his patience. Calling the situation unparalleled, he stormed that the "Senate of the United States is the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action. A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own (that would be the minority), have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible." The Senate, he demanded, must adopt a cloture rule.

On March 8, 1917, in a specially called session of the 65th Congress, the Senate agreed to a rule that essentially preserved its tradition of unlimited debate. The rule required a 2/3rds majority to end debate and permitted each member to speak for an additional hour after that before voting on final passage. Over the next 46 years, the Senate managed to invoke cloture on only 5 occasions.

In 1975*****, the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds (67) to three-fifths (60) of the current 100 senators."

***** Interesting little side notes I noted trolling the web:

#1: Guess how many Democratic Senators there were in 1975? 60 (the same number needed for cloture as mentioned above).

#2: During the 35 years from 1945 through 1981, the Democrats were the majority in Senate save for 8 years (1st 2 years of Eisenhower's first term and the 1st 6 years of Reagan). During late Eisenhower years through JFK and LBJ, the Democratic Senate majority numbers were as follows: 65, 64, 66, 68, and 64 (ie - total dominance).

When Nixon was elected, their majority slipped to 57, 54, and 56. Once Ford was in place, they regained numbers to 60. So after ceding their 2/3rds control of the Senate during Nixon, they changed the rules while still in the majority and suddenly 60 was the magic number for cloture.

#3: From the moment Cloture was first instituted during Wilson until the Cloture rules were changed from 67 votes necessary to 60 (1975), Cloture was invoked only 21 times. In 1975 alone, it was used 17 times by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

#4: During Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II it was invoked an average of 12 times a session (6 times a year) and ranged from 3 (Carter) to 34 (Bush II).

#5: Since Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, it has been used 90 times.
90.

QUESTION:

So, how do you feel about Harry Reid using a rule that was originally designed as a means of funding WWI by expediting war appropriations bills NOW being used to force Universal Health Care upon the public?

Keep in mind the following:

1. Obama's approval rating is only 47%, his lowest since taking office when he was at 65%. While his approval rating has dropped 18%, his disapproval rating has climbed from 30% to 52% in only 10 months.

2. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's approval rating in her own state of California is only 34%.

3. Senator Harry Reid is behind in his re-election campaign in NV by 10% ("Sue Lowden beating Reid by 10%, 50% to 40%. Lowden is chairwoman of the Nevada Republican Party and the preferred candidate of the Republican party establishment. GOP hopeful Danny Tarkanian beats Reid by seven points, 50% to 43%").

4. In the race for California's next governor in 2010, Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown are tied at 41% each.

5. After Pelosi's bill passed the House, the public was against the bill 54% v. 42%. Even CA comes in at 51%, down 4% since last week.

To pull a cloture vote on one of the largest entitlement programs in US history, federalize 17% of the economy, and to do it on a Saturday, off the regular news cycle, is an atrocity.

Click Here for the "Health Care Turkey" handout you can give to your family & friends while the Senate is on recess during Thanksgiving.