Final vote 220-215

Saturday night, I was at a fundraising event when I received the Tweet about the traitorous actions of 219 Democrats and 1 Republican, passing HR 3962 with their YES vote. By a mere 3 votes (220-215; 3 votes transferred from the left to the right would have resulted in a defeat), the House gained a socialistic victory over free markets, capitalism, personal responsibility, freedom, and more. See their votes at the clerk’s desk.

In that YES Vote, they trampled on 222 years of the Constitution being the guiding Law of the Land, and in it, the very straightforward and unequivocal boundaries set forth on Congress via Article 1, Section 8, and the 10th Amendment. They GROSSLY overstepped their authority, and voted YES on an unconstitutional act.

This is not good for Americans. The only people to benefit are special interest groups and those getting the kickbacks. They have already admitted that they don’t yet know how this will be paid for. We know! The same way you pay for any other government program…. On the backs of law-abiding, productive individuals like you and me. This is nothing more than another tax.

Companies right now that provide health insurance for employees are now paying out about 10-13% for coverage. With this passage – they can opt for the public option and be only charged 8% surcharge. Do you believe that this will allow you to continue the same coverage you already had?

Of course – what they don’t want people to know – is if you don’t have private insurance, and you don’t have the public option, when you go to pay your taxes, you will be fined a couple thousand dollars, to meet that mandate. This will specifically hurt the middle income families and workers struggling to just get by as it is. So let’s see…. Tax us to pay for it, and then tax us to buy it and if we don’t comply with that fine us (another tax)! No new taxes on the middle class, right?

My opponent, Non-Rep. Peter Defazio (D-OR4), voted YES on this Act. He said back in August 2009, that he would when it came to the floor. It was his assertion that HE knew what was best for his constituents, completely disregarding the tens of thousands of emails, phone calls, letters and such we have all sent his office to say no. He said “I will vote my conscience”. Is that what we are paying him for? To vote his conscience? He has a job description and nowhere in that job description does it give him the authority to force you and me, his employers, to buy anything! He also made an oral contract with us when he took his oath of office to “defend and protect the constitution”, yet in Town halls, he admitted that Congress does not have Constitutional authority to do anything with healthcare.

He has proven AGAIN that he is no longer fit to serve as our representative. He no longer cares what it is that we want done in Congress, only that which most benefits him. However, what I don’t think Mr. Defazio has taken into account is that a great number of those identifying themselves as Democrats, are Conservative and Moderate Democrats, fed up with out of control spending in Washington. Like the Republicans and a vast majority of Americans they wanted to see Change that means less Federal spending, more transparency in their administration, and protection of our God-given rights. All that has come about is a spending spree that has brought America closer and faster to fiscal failure and insecurity than ever before. There has been no transparency!

Independent conservatives and moderates that helped elect Obama, are fed up with the “Business as usual” as well. And Defazio votes along Pelosi’s instructions and supports every spending bill and program that Obama has called for except for the Stimulus plan that did not give him the money that he wanted and Cap & Trade which he considered “too capitalistic” and because there “weren’t enough regulations” included.

Come 2010, we have an opportunity to begin reversing this damage, as well as the damage put on us by the previous administration. America, and specifically, all the citizens of Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, need to wake up and realize that nothing will change unless we change the way we elect our representatives. Stop with party politics; this is not about what is best for the party, but what is best for America and our citizens.

We need to repeal this act – and do it in 2011 after we take back Congress by electing Constitution and Liberty minded representatives. We can bring about true health care reform, but we do not need to nationalize it to see it happen. I am not saying “no”. I am offering Constitutionally sound alternatives that will not further burden the people of our district, of our state and of our country. Reform tort laws, allow interstate competition between private insurers, and offer tax credits to providers providing pro bono care for the indigent are all ways in which to make health care affordable for all of our citizens. Defazio and his colleagues like to use the Interstate Commerce clause to justify their unconstitutional actions, but used appropriately, the commerce clause enables them to open up the borders to the importation of pharmaceuticals thereby decreasing prescription costs.

I am calling on all Conservative and Moderate voters, whether you are a Democrat, Independent, or a Republican, to stand with me as your Congressional candidate of choice. Even my primary opponent believes that the federal government has the responsibility and the authority to be a “facilitator” for healthcare. Let’s send a message to DC that we won’t stand for “politics as usual”. If you hire me as your representative in Congress for US House district 4 my first act will be to form a coalition of Independent, Democrat, and Republican representatives that will submit legislation to immediately repeal the AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR AMERICA ACT. This Act will not help to recover this economy. It will destroy it. I ask you to support me and vote for me. Together, we can save our country.




www.Germond2010.com


Donate To Germond For Congress 2010 Today! $5, $10, $20 - Every Dollar Helps!

Do you really want to change the country's course?

We are all motivated to return our beloved country to its Constitutional roots given to us by the founding fathers, but how motivated are we? Do we care enough to do what it takes to get it back?

We all have different gifts and talents. Some of us are gifted writers and can write articles to be blogged or submitted to newspapers and magazines. Some are internet savvy and can offer web development for candidates and issue based groups such as this. Some have media connections, can offer venues for . meetings, are leaders and can organize. The list goes on and on.

Then some of us take up the banner and march forward boldly and (at least publicly) fearlessly to go head to head with those elected persons that are destroying our country. Some of us feel so moved to become candidates. I am one of those people. Being in politics was not one the items on my "must do before I die" list. As I watched my rights being destroyed systematically I kept thinking,m with rising panic, "Someone needs to do something!" It finally dawned on me...... I am someone. I am running for US Congress, OR-4 against Peter Defazio in the general election and am running against Sid Leiken, a liberal-moderate Republican in the primary election. You can read my website to learn more about me.

There are 3 things of value to a candidate: Time, Money and People. Everyone has something a candidate can use. If you believe in what a candidate stands for you have an opportunity to give something to that candidate in order to get them elected.

I see it as a piece of pie:


The purpose for money is to get the word out about a candidate. We do that by purchasing signs, literature, ads, etc. Time is that time that people donate to walk around doing door-knocking, putting out signs, helping to work the campaign, designing websites, taking pictures, attending rallies, etc. People means those supporters who will wear the T-shirts, talk about the candidate, write the letters to the editor, passing out business cards while standing in the grocery line.

We candidates, need it all. Some people work a lot of hours and have little time, but they do have funds they can give to support a candidate. Others have lots of time, but no financial resources to donate. Most people can be the "voice in the street", carrying campaign cards and passing them out, putting car magnets on their cars advertising to everyone that they meet in the course of a day.

With more people and time, we need less money, but we can not delude ourselves into thinking that none is needed. It costs $2200 just to get on the ballots and in the Voters Guides. Donations do not have to be in large chunks (though that is always welcome!). Donations of $5 and $10 and $20 is what made up the bulk of Ron Paul's $6M moneybomb on November 5th, 2007. That is support from the people. That is grassroots support! That is what will turn the tide in this country. That is what I, and other liberty candidates like me, am counting on.

If you have not yet donated to your liberty candidate, make a pledge today for the 5th of November Mass candidate donation day at thisNovember5th. Alternately, you can donate at my website today or any day. If desired, you can set up a monthly donation of as little as $5 for as many or as few months as you wish. We make it painless!

Don't forget, in Oregon you have a $50/individual, $100/couple tax credit on your state income tax refund. Either you can spend it to resist the liberal agenda or you can let our state legislators decide how to spend it. It is up to you!

Thank-you for your time and your donations!

Illegal means Criminal

I am confused. What is so difficult about the concept of illegal immigration. Illegal means criminal. Why are we allowing people who are here illegally to demonstrate on OUR capitol steps? Why aren't these known criminals deported immediately? Why is our over-taxed (no pun intended) social system overburdened by people who are not even citizens of our country?

Those who would argue that we need to take care of those less fortunate than us fail to understand, or explain, how we can help all. Our responsibility is to our own citizens first and primarily. None of our tax dollars should be going to improve the plight of citizens of other countries; that is the option of individuals.

I accept citizens who come here through legal channels, but illegals should be immediately deported. By very definition, they are criminals. Why would we want them here? They have already proved their blatant disregard for our laws. The kids? Sorry. Their parents are responsible for them...they go home, too.

I am tired of those of us who are legal citizens of this country having their rights revoked and limited on a daily basis, but criminals have an increasing number of *rights*.

Our American young people are having a hard time getting housing because these criminal families are taking up our HUD subsidized housing. Why?

People, we need to take our country back! Get politically active. Write to your congressmen. Spread the word. It's up to us.

A repost from National Black American Association

OBAMA – A CHARMING LIAR?

By Frances Rice

President Barack Obama is a charming liar. That assertion was made by a liberal talk show host on Air America, a far left-wing radio station.

Where is the caterwauling about racism or a lack of “civility” from Democrats and liberals in the mainstream media or else where. When ardent Obama supporters start calling him a liar, it’s a sure sign that the wool has been pulled off of the Obama wolf.

In a laughable attempt to keep the Obama fig leaf of truthfulness in place, Democrats and their media allies are now castigating Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina for spontaneously and truthfully calling Obama a liar during Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress. There was no such hand wringing when Democrats booed President George W. Bush when he addressed Congress. Ignored is the fact that Obama during his speech trashed as liars average Americans, Republican leaders and all who do not agree with Obama’s radical government-run, rationed health care agenda. Lost in the media coverage is the fact that laughter erupted in Congress during Obama’s speech when he readily admitted that details of his healthcare plan still need to be worked out. Sadly, Obama’s duplicitous speech was an insulting campaign ploy to further deceive Americans and divide our nation.

From the moment he stepped onto the national stage to campaign for the presidency, Obama has consistently lied to the American people in order to convince us to trust him with our economic and national security. Since becoming our president, he has betrayed that trust.

During his first eight months in office, Obama has exhibited his admiration for dictators and disdain for our allies. He offended the Queen of England and bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. He praised the Marxist Daniel Ortega, kissed Socialist Hugo Chavez on the cheek and endorsed the Socialist Evo Morales of Bolivia. He sided with Hugo Chavez and Communist Fidel Castro against Honduras, a country that followed its constitution and stopped its president from illegally turning himself into that country’s dictator. Obama announced that he would meet with Iranians with no pre-conditions, while they're building their nuclear weapons.

Obama displayed a blatant lack of concern for what is in the best interest of America when he circled the globe and publicly apologized for America's world leadership. He told the Mexican president that Americans are responsible for the violence in Mexico. He announced a cut in funding for our new missile defense system the day after an ICBM was launched by North Korea. He released information on U.S. intelligence gathering despite contrary urgings of his own CIA director and the four prior CIA directors. He ordered that the word "terrorism" be stricken from our discourse and replaced with the innocuous words "man made disasters." He appointed a Homeland Security Chief who identified military veterans and abortion opponents as "dangers to the nation." In a scary bid to increase the political power of the Democratic Party, Obama politicized the census by moving it out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House.

His dogged determination to turn our country into a failed socialist nation was in full evidence when Obama nationalized General Motors and Chrysler. He gave to the unions control over the two giant automobile manufacturers, while freezing out retired investors and allocating billions of taxpayer dollars to this socialist power grab.. As a further slap in our economic face, he expanded the corporate bailouts, including giving billions to AIG without pre-conditions. Then, to add insult to injury, Obama doubled our national debt with his out-of-control spending.

Obama is spending so brazenly because he is counting on Americans being lulled into complacency by the time of the 2010 elections. By design, the bulk of the "stimulus" funds will be spent, just in time, to spur a false recovery. The "recovery" will be hailed as proof of Obama's wisdom by the liberal media. It will not matter that the so-called recovery will not be real, or that it won't last – as long as Obama and liberal Democrats stay in control of our government.

Demonstrating his willingness to operate without regard for our laws, Obama fired two inspector generals (IG’s) who were investigating illegal activities by Obama cronies. Obama fired the IG’s even though, by law, inspector generals are authorized to conduct investigations without interference from government officials. Blatantly, Obama refused to prosecute Black Panthers caught on video intimidating voters at a polling place in Philadelphia during the 2008 election. Further, Obama filled his cabinet with five people who have cheated on their taxes, and two of his other nominees withdrew after they were exposed as tax cheats.

The lack of any check on Obama’s power, due to a veto-proof Democrat-controlled Congress and a lap dog liberal media, has caused Obama to boldly assert his radical agenda and surround himself with a stable of over 30 advisors called “Czars”. These unaccountable Obama-appointees are beholden only to Obama. They are not unanswerable to Congress or the American people, as was intended by our Constitution which requires congressional confirmation hearings and oversight of political appointees. Among those Czars are Communists, Marxists and other characters with troubling backgrounds and questionable credentials who should not be allowed anywhere near the White House. Gone is media outrage over abuse of power or an imperial presidency, as well as any angst about the shredding of our Constitution.

Truly disturbing is White House advisor Mark Lloyd, the “Diversity” Czar at the FCC, who was inspired by Marxist Saul Alinsky. He is pushing a “confrontational movement” designed to give a dominant role to public broadcasting and silence voices in alternative and conservative media outlets.

Most troubling of Obama’s unaccountable appointees is the recently resigned “Green Job” Czar Van Jones, a self-described Communist. Van Jones indicated his belief that America deserved to be attacked on September 11th and signed a petition that claimed the attacks were orchestrated by our own government. He stated in a video that white environmentalists deliberately steer poisons into minority communities. Just as chilling is Jones’ desire to destroy our free enterprise system and replace it with Marxist-inspired socialism. Van Jones made it into the White House because Obama shares Jones’ radical views, as is demonstrated by Obama’s past associations with Marxists and anti-American characters, such as unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and black theologian Rev. Jeremiah Wright who spewed out anti-America rhetoric.

The Marxism embraced by Lloyd, Jones and Obama is anchored on the strong-armed tactics of tyrants. A prime ploy is scapegoating the rich and all “enemies” of the ruling regime. The latest Obama administration’s “enemy” is the insurance industry.

Other Marxist methods include controlling the media, exploiting ethnic hatreds and demonizing the opposition, as has been done to average Americans protesting Obama’s disastrous public option, rationed-health care scheme. Obama and his supporters scoffed at parents and called them racist for not wanting their children indoctrinated by Obama with his K-12 speech. Obama’s talking about the value of education was not the problem. What rankled citizens was the lesson plan from the Department of Education – before it was changed under pressure from the public – that required children to write papers about how to help Obama achieve his radical agenda.

The article “Another Failed Presidency” by Geoffrey P. Hunt explains how and why Obama considers himself to be a Third World Socialist, like his Kenyan biological father, the inspiration for Obama’s book “Dreams From My Father”. Hunt opines that Obama’s determined adherence to failed socialism is why he is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson.

Charles Krauthammer in his article “Obama, the Mortal” recounts how Obama in his first address to Congress gave the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president.. Krauthammer demonstrates how Obama is laboring under the mistaken belief that his election imbued him with the kind of “banana-republic plebiscite” to enlarge state power and increase our national debt with massive spending. Obama’s actions to implement his socialist vision for America inspired a powerful outburst of public outrage at tea parties and town hall meetings, legitimate anger that Obama and his minions derided as mob-like and “racist”. Krauthammer points out that while Obama was castigating protesting Americans, Obama’s administration was “cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest – from drug companies to auto unions to doctors – in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged”.

“The Death Book for Veterans - Ex-soldiers don't need to be told they're a burden to society” by Jim Towey provides a chilling look into how government bureaucrats at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are using cost containment analysis to systematically deny health care to our veterans. ObamaCare will put our entire nation on the slippery slope to the “death panel” end-of-life decisions being made now at the VA.

Author Larry Elder wrote the following on Carl Polizzi’s Patriot Post blog.

"What does it take for some to wake up? When Obama publicly asserts that some corporations, including 'Big Oil' and medical insurance companies, make 'obscene profits' (they don't compared with many other industries) and that his 'compensation czar' will look into executive compensation, what does that tell you?

“When he argues that medical insurance companies need a 'public option' (before public opinion forced him to back away from it) to keep them 'honest,' what does that say?

“When he arrogantly claims that fighting 'global warming' and tackling the 'health care crisis' are not just moral imperatives but also necessary to keep our economy robust (?!), what does that show?

“Voters last year elected a left-wing former 'community organizer' with one of the Senate's most liberal voting records. He seeks to take the country -- over the growing resistance of even those who voted for him -- to an idealized world of government-guaranteed equality of outcomes.

“He wants a government-guaranteed 'level playing field' of wealth redistribution via taxing those deemed to have too much.

“Obama's goals are open, blatant and confidently asserted, backed by a filibuster-proof, supermajority, Democratic-controlled Congress.

“There is no Big Secret, no subterfuge, no bait-and-switch. This is who and what he is."

Larry Elder is correct. During the 2008 election the liberal media helped Obama hide who he really is from the voting public. Then, when Obama took the oath of office as president, he vowed to protect and defend our Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We now find that Obama and his appointed Czars have formed a sinister, shadowy government of domestic enemies against whom we have no defense.

Obama’s ultimate insult is that he has no remorse.

Frances Rice, a retired lawyer and Army Lieutenant Colonel, is chairman of the National Black Republican Association and may be contacted at: www.NBRA.info

Read more at http://www.nationalblackrepublicans.com/

Healthcare plans

According to FoxNews, Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank said, "Congress has to be able to tell people they are not getting everything they want." Although he was talking about Social Security at the time, it applies as readily to “free” healthcare. There is no such thing as “free”; it always costs somebody something.

Here in Oregon, we already have a form of Socialized medicine in the Oregon Health Plan. It is to my great embarrassment that Oregon’s plan is often held up as an example of what we don’t want in our country! One of the stories often quoted is The one about Barbara Wagner, who is covered through the state of Oregon's government health care plan, and was denied an important cancer drug she requested and instead was offered a drug for assisted suicide. Her doctor offered hope in the new chemotherapy drug Tarceva, but the Oregon Health Plan sent her a letter telling her the cancer treatment was not approved. Instead, the letter said, the plan would pay for comfort care, including "physician aid in dying," better known as assisted suicide.

Even Joe Lieberman calls for a stop to pushing through this nationalized health plan. He urges a more gradual movement because of economic concerns.

My healthcare platform includes the following planks:
• Bring insurance companies under the Sherman Anti-trust laws like every other business.
• Make insurance portable so that it can be purchased across state lines. When I moved from Michigan to Oregon 5 years ago, my car & health insurance premiums each decreased by exactly one half. If we could buy across state lines, the competition would force prices to drop ~ if used in conjunction with the Sherman Anti-trust law.
• Tort reform. Those who have been injured permanently and catastrophically should never be left without medical coverage, but no one should get rich on a malpractice suit including the lawyers. Tort reform has worked remarkably in Texas and doctors flocked to the Lone Star state in the first 3 years since Tort reform was enacted in 2004.
• It is also within the scope of Congress’ enumerated powers to allow providers who provide pro bono care to indigent patients a federal tax credit equal to the Medicare/Medicaid payment that would otherwise be paid.
• We also need to make sure that all recipients of non-emergency care are citizens. We cannot afford to continue to provide “free” care, which as I stated before is not free.

Whatever we decide, we must not rush into a plan that has not been well thought out regarding outcomes. It can be compared to going to the doctor for chest pain and being rushed into open heart surgery without testing. Something needs to be done, but we need to make sure that we are doing the right thing at the right time.