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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'States'

Walker signs ‘castle doctrine’ bill, other measures

December 8th, 2011 · Government, News Alert, States, Wisconsin

Governor also OKs legislation to cap attorney fees, use test results to fire teachers

By Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel

Dec. 7, 2011

Madison – Homeowners who shoot intruders will have new legal protections, under a bill signed Wednesday by Gov. Scott Walker.

The Republican governor also signed legislation to limit attorney fees in lawsuits – a bill that conservatives said would end frivolous lawsuits but which Democrats said also would end many lawsuits with merit.

Under the intruders bill, courts in most criminal and civil matters would presume that people using deadly force had acted reasonably against anyone unlawfully inside their residence, business or vehicle, whether the trespasser was armed or not.

The proposal is sometimes known as the “castle doctrine,” a reference to the saying that one’s home is one’s castle. The bill passed the Senate and Assembly on bipartisan votes last month.

The legislation is one of 21 bills that Walker signed privately Wednesday after they were passed by the Republican Legislature in October and November.

“By signing the castle doctrine into law, I am standing with those individuals who chose to protect their family and property,” Walker said in a statement.

On Nov. 1, Wisconsin became the 49th state in the country to allow people to carry concealed firearms.

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Amid backlash and budget deficits, government workers’ pensions are targets like the rest of America

October 6th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Greed, Money Lost, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, States, Tax Dollars, Treasury, Unemployment

By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 6, 2010; 2:45 AM

PHILADELPHIA – Faced with deep budget deficits and overextended pension plans, state and local leaders are increasingly looking to trim the lucrative retirement benefits that have long been associated with government employment.

Public employees are facing a backlash that has intensified with the nation’s economic woes, union leaders say, because of their good job security, generous health-care and pension benefits, and right to retire long before most private-sector workers.

In California, where an estimated 80 cents out of every government dollar goes to employee pay and benefits, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has proposed a two-tier system of pensions that offers new state workers reduced benefits with tighter retirement formulas. He also wants state workers to kick in higher pension contributions to help deal with California’s staggering deficit.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) calls reform of public employee pensions essential to fixing the state’s enormous fiscal problems. Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Gran-holm (D) recently signed a change to her state’s teacher pensions that increases employee contributions. Illinois has pushed back the retirement age for new employees. Detailing his agenda for New York, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew M. Cuomo has said, “We simply can’t afford to pay benefits and pensions that are out of line with economic reality.”

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ObamaCare’s Hotel California: The state moves to impose price controls you can never leave.

September 28th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Government Control, Healthcare, Immigration, Non-Transparency, Selling Out the US, States, Tax Dollars, Unemployment

California, the novelist Wallace Stegner famously wrote, is like the rest of America, only more so—meaning that wherever the country is headed, the Golden State is probably there already. So the state’s ObamaCare advance planning deserves closer scrutiny, given that it mirrors the regulatory and ideological model that the White House favors for everyone else.

In a matter of days, California will set a precedent for the future of the U.S. individual and small-business insurance markets via ObamaCare’s “exchanges,” where people will purchase coverage at heavily subsidized rates. The exchanges don’t start up until 2014, but the states were given wide bureaucratic latitude in how they’re run, and Sacramento is using this flexibility to convert them into a pretext for imposing de facto price controls on the insurance industry.

Jerry Seib and Gerard Baker discuss the renewed furor over health care, including the war of worlds between House Minority Leader John Boehner and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

That may be what Democrats had in mind when they passed the bill, but it’s particularly unfortunate because in principle exchanges could be a useful reform. States could sponsor transparent, neutral clearinghouses that compare costs and benefits among plans, encouraging insurers to compete to offer the products that consumers find most valuable. An exchange could operate much like travel websites such as Expedia.com, and a good one along those lines started in Utah last year.

California looked further east for inspiration—to Massachusetts, which has the only other exchange in the country. Known as the connector, it’s the centerpiece of the ObamaCare beta test that Mitt Romney passed in 2006 and is now the power center of the state’s public utility-style insurance regulation. In the daisy chain of “expertise” that is the health policy world, California’s regulations were shaped by Jon Kingsdale, a devout White House ally who used to run the Massachusetts connector and is now a consultant.

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Los Angeles: Broke and Building the Most Expensive School in U.S. History

September 7th, 2010 · Accountability, States, Tax Dollars, Taxes

Benches that talk, a Cocoanut Grove auditorium, and a marble slab engraved with quotes from Ted Kennedy.

By Allysia Finley

Los Angeles

At $578 million—or about $140,000 per student—the 24-acre Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in mid-Wilshire is the most expensive school ever constructed in U.S. history. To put the price in context, this city’s Staples sports and entertainment center cost $375 million. To put it in a more important context, the school district is currently running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off 3,000 teachers in the last two years. It also has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country and some of the worst test scores.

The K-12 complex isn’t merely an overwrought paean to the nation’s most celebrated liberal political family. It’s a jarring reminder that money doesn’t guarantee success—though it certainly beautifies failure.

The cluster of schools is situated on the premises of the old Ambassador Hotel where the New York senator and presidential candidate was shot in 1968. The school district insists that it chose the site not merely for sentimental reasons, but because it was the only space available in the area and the property was dirt cheap.

The Robert F. Kennedy Learning Center

That was the only cheap thing about the project. In order to build on the site, the school district had to resolve protracted legal battles with Donald Trump—who wanted to build the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi there—and with historical conservationists who demanded that certain features be restored or recreated.

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Maryland Democrat Sen. Currie indicted on charges of taking bribes

September 2nd, 2010 · Accountability, Corruption, Defense, Democrats, Ethics, Greed, States

"I committed no crime"

By Maria Glod and John Wagner Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 2, 2010; 12:10 AM

Longtime Maryland Sen. Ulysses Currie, one of the most powerful and popular figures in the General Assembly, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he took more than $245,000 in bribes to use his position and influence to do favors for a grocery chain.

The 48-page indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, comes after a years-long FBI investigation into consulting work Currie (D-Prince George’s) did for Shoppers Food and Pharmacy. Over six years, the indictment alleges, Currie took action to help Shoppers sell liquor at one store, save money in the construction of another store and buy land. Two former Shoppers officials also were indicted by the federal grand jury.

Shoppers hired Currie to work as a consultant focusing on public affairs, minority recruitment, and outreach and community relations. But in reality, prosecutors allege, Shoppers paid him to use his Senate seat to benefit the company’s business and financial interests.

Currie, 73, highlighted his actions in a paper he wrote in September 2007, hoping to justify continued payments from the grocery chain, the indictment says. He called the document “Accomplishments on Behalf of Shoppers.” He wrote that he was “in a unique position to assist Shoppers in expanding its mission and increasing its bottom line” and that he would bring the company “many more opportunities,” court papers say.

Currie declined to comment. His attorney, Dale P. Kelberman, said in a statement that the charges are unfounded.

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Missouri vote cited as proof that public dislikes health-care overhaul

August 9th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Dissention, Government, Healthcare, Non-Transparency, Obama Exposed, Politics, States

By Alec MacGillis Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 5, 2010

A day after Missouri voters rejected a key component of the nation’s new health-care overhaul, Republicans seized on the result as conclusive evidence that Americans don’t like the law.

Primary voters in Missouri were the first to vote directly on the law, in a ballot referendum that prohibits the federal government from requiring people to have health insurance. The measure passed 71 percent to 29 percent.

Supporters of the overhaul played down the vote, noting that it has no practical impact and that Tuesday’s electorate was largely Republican. But they conceded that a lack of public support could make it hard to put the law into practice.

Lawmakers in several other states, such as Virginia, have already passed laws rejecting the “individual mandate,” a central feature of the health-care overhaul. The state laws, including Missouri’s, are largely symbolic because they are trumped by federal law.

More consequential are the legal challenges that have been brought by Republican state attorneys general, including a lawsuit by Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli II. A federal judge ruled Monday that Virginia’s suit can go forward, rejecting arguments from the Obama administration that the state had no standing to sue.

Regardless, Republicans said Wednesday that the vote in Missouri marks a turning point in the health-care debate.

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Jobs bill clears a key hurdle in the Senate: As Snowe & Collins turn Democrat to get money.

August 4th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, States, Tax Dollars, Taxes

Reference: Aviation Safety and Investment Act of 2010 (111 HR 1586)  (Herein refered to as Job  Bill)

By Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 4, 2010; 1:38 PM

A $26 billion plan to prevent the layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers, firefighters and other state and local workers cleared a key hurdle in the Senate on Wednesday. The vote handed President Obama a long-sought victory on his election-year jobs agenda.

The bill advanced by a vote of 61 to 38, breaking a GOP filibuster and setting the stage for final Senate approval later this week. Two Republicans — Maine senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins — joined a united Democratic caucus in supporting the measure.

It must now return to the House, which adjourned Friday for its August recess. Snowe urged House leaders to summon lawmakers back to Washington to complete work on the bill and send it on to the White House for Obama’s signature. A senior House Democratic aide said leaders had yet to decide whether to reconvene the House in August or wait until its scheduled return after Labor Day.

Democrats hailed passage of the bill, which would extend programs enacted in last year’s economic stimulus package to help cash-strapped states avoid layoffs. The measure would give states $10 billion for education programs and $16 billion to help cover their Medicaid budgets in the first six months of next year.

The cash is only about half what Obama had sought for the two programs and is far less generous than desperate governors had hoped for.

Anxiety in Congress about the mounting national debt forced Democratic leaders to devise a plan to cover the cost of the package, blunting its impact on the economy. To offset the new spending, the package would cut off in March 2014 an expansion of food stamp benefits enacted last year. It would also eliminate tax breaks for some multinational corporations based in the United States that have operations abroad — a centerpiece of a House Democratic campaign to promote domestic manufacturing and discourage companies from shipping jobs overseas.

Democrats had tried for weeks to advance a bill to provide fresh aid to the states, but had been pushed repeatedly to scale back the proposal — and ultimately to pay for it. Even then, Democrats lured the needed Republican votes only after dropping proposed cuts to Navy shipbuilding, an essential part of the Maine economy.

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Virginia legal opinion supports checks of immigration status

August 3rd, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Homeland Security, Immigration, Immigration, National Security, Obama Exposed, States

By Anita Kumar and Rosalind S. Helderman Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 3, 2010

RICHMOND — Virginia joined the national debate over immigration Monday when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II issued a legal opinion that authorizes law enforcement to check the immigration status of anyone stopped by police officers for any reason.

Previously, law enforcement officers in Virginia were required to investigate the legal status only of those who were arrested and jailed.

Cuccinelli’s opinion is less stringent than the portion of an Arizona law that was stopped by a federal court last week. Under that law, Arizona authorities were required to question people who they have a “reasonable suspicion” are illegal immigrants.

“Our opinion basically said that Virginia law enforcement has the authority to make such inquiries so long as they don’t extend the duration of a stop by any significant degree,” Cuccinelli (R) said at a news conference Monday. “That’s consistent with Supreme Court authority.”

The attorney general issued the opinion in response to a request from Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), who sought clarification on whether local police, conservation officers and zoning officials could inquire about legal status.

Marshall said he chose to seek the legal opinion because he feared that the Senate, under Democratic control, would not approve legislation permitting law enforcement officers to inquire about legal status during routine stops. Bills seeking similar powers were killed in the Senate in recent years.

Marshall wrote to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) on Monday asking him to codify Cuccinelli’s opinion through executive order. He said he thinks that Virginia can avoid legal trouble by allowing but not mandating the checks by police.

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Obama, Democrats and Illegal Immigrants win round 1 over US Citizens

July 28th, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Defense, Democrats, Government, Government Control, Immigration, Immigration, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, States, Treason

Judge blocks parts of Arizona immigration law

By JACQUES BILLEAUD and AMANDA MYERS – The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 28, 2010; 1:30 PM

PHOENIX — A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents – including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that those sections should be put on hold until the courts resolve the issues. Other provisions of the law, many of them procedural and slight revisions to existing Arizona immigraiton statute, will go into effect at 12:01 a.m.

The ruling came just as police were making last-minute preparations to begin enforcement of the law and protesters were planning large demonstrations to speak out against the measure. At least one group planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them about their immigration status.

The volume of the protests will likely be turned down a few notches because of the ruling by Bolton, a Clinton appointee who suddenly became a crucial figure in the immigration debate when she was assigned the seven lawsuits filed against the Arizona law.

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Hearing on Arizona immigration law begins as Obama tries to Stop Immigration Enforcement.

July 26th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Government, Government Control, Homeland Security, Immigration, Immigration, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, States, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Unemployment

  • Obama wants to pay Americans not to work and give American jobs to Illegals. ~pr

By Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2010

PHOENIX — A federal judge pushed back Thursday against a contention by the Obama Justice Department that a tough new Arizona immigration law set to take effect next week would cause “irreparable harm” and intrude into federal immigration enforcement.

“Why can’t Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton asked in a pointed exchange with Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler. Her comment came during a rare federal court hearing in the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer (R).

Bolton, a Democratic appointee, also questioned a core part of the Justice Department’s argument that she should declare the law unconstitutional: that it is “preempted” by federal law because immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal prerogative.

“How is there a preemption issue?” the judge asked. “I understand there may be other issues, but you’re arguing preemption. Where is the preemption if everybody who is arrested for some crime has their immigration status checked?”

At issue in Thursday’s hearing, argued in a tan-colored “special proceedings” courtroom” inside the federal courthouse, was whether Bolton would grant a preliminary injunction to stop the law from taking effect while the federal lawsuit proceeds.

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